


Shikizaki: An Omikuji Variation

by ironlotus



Series: The Year of Bad Luck [3]
Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: AU, Character Development, Character Growth, Developing Relationship, F/M, POV Sesshoumaru (InuYasha), Relationship Issues, Retelling of another fic, Semi-Canon Divergence?, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-10-04 20:10:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 45,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20476793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironlotus/pseuds/ironlotus
Summary: Myouga's invitation to Sesshoumaru to fill a guest lecturer post at the university must come with an ulterior motive. It can't be solely due to Naraku's presence, surely? When he meets Higurashi and sees the Shikon no Tama around her neck, Myouga's intentions become clear. What Sesshoumaru can't figure out, though, are Higurashi's motivations. Or, worse, why it is that a Miko should be so easily able to overthrow his reason.The third part of a series, this is Omikuji and Han-Kichi, retold in Sesshoumaru's point of view. You may want to start there first.





	1. Act I

**Author's Note:**

> And we are, once again, back! Please be sure that you have read Omikuji and Han-Kichi both before you read this fic, as it covers events from both stories.

-+-

**Shikizaki: An Omikuji Variation**

**Act I**

-+-

Still in this fickle world,

I find myself lingering on.

Every single morning

blossoms appear on morning glories,

day adding to day.

-+-

Chiaki-san’s passing was a tragedy. But he was unfortunately human, and humans had a habit of dying. Sesshoumaru’s work necessitated interaction with them, though he did his level best to keep it to a minimum. However much he respected his former professor, the fifteen years of their acquaintance passed in the merest blink of an eye. And now he was dead. Before his time, perhaps, but not significantly more than one could expect of a typical human male.

He would have to attend the wake. And, because his social persona this lifetime owed his relative fame as an author to Chiaki-san’s early guidance and encouragement, he would have to try to present as suitably aggrieved. How laughable. That _he_, Sesshoumaru, son of the Great Dog General— and having centuries ago surpassed his sire in honor, skill, and strength—should require assistance from a mere human historian! And to pursue an intentionally mediocre writing career, no less. A laughable idea. But he must maintain appearances, so he must therefore go to the wake.

Myouga would not be calling him about _this_.

He debated, just for a moment, allowing Myouga’s call to redirect to voice-mail again. The flea, like Jaken, benefitted on occasion from being reminded of his place in the world, and what he owed to his betters. Being crushed underfoot every so often did him good. Missing this, the latest of numerous calls in immediate succession, would certainly accomplish that. But Sesshoumaru rejected the silent treatment; he preferred to castigate those who irked him directly.

So he answered the phone.

“Sesshoumaru-sama,” the voice, awash with relief, cried.

“You have called six times in the last six minutes, Myouga. Whatever your business, it must be important.”

Stuttering and apologies ensued, followed by backtracking. And finally, self-justification. “Though, to be quite honest Sesshoumaru-sama, it _is_ a matter of _historical_ importance.” That Myouga ran a University’s history department did not excuse him for that terrible pun.

“Indeed?”

“We have a guest lecturer position available that I believe would be a benefit for your career—” Sesshoumaru’s snort made Myouga rush to add, “and more importantly, we have at long last located the archives that your eminent sire had buried before his battle with Ryuukotsusei.”

“Hmm.”

“And, a coincidence, maybe, but it seems that Naraku has resurfaced.” At the sound of the hanyou’s name, Sesshoumaru’s face twisted into a fierce frown. Every time he spared the cur a thought—which, granted, amounted to rarely, proximal to never—he regretted not killing him to completion when last they faced off. “It would be an ideal opportunity for you. You could oversee the unearthing of the scrolls, and—”

“I accept the position. Send the paperwork through. I’ll have course syllabi to you on Monday.”

He hung up and touched his phone down on his desk. A glance out his window to the tree-lined pedestrian street below, the diminutive faux-Venetian waterway with its kitschy little gondola rides, and his fingers began to drum on the desktop. He would need an apartment. The commute from here would be untenable.

He put in a few calls and by the time he squared away the logistics of his temporary move, his fax machine finished printing off his contract with the University, ready for a signature and return. As his pen hovered over the paper, a little spark of excitement rose within him.

The teaching he could take or leave. ‘Leave’ would be the desirable choice, considering how much human interaction it would require. But something about picking up and going so spontaneously, heading out without knowing what awaited him out there, reminded him of the freedom of wandering his lands before the human plague ravaged the world.

He had always been a wanderer. An explorer. His curiosity, a fearsome thing, must be satisfied.

At first, when the industrial revolution and technological enhancements came, his chosen careers tended toward those in mathematics and engineering, or sciences, macro and micro. But industry and technology, which granted humanity ever-increasing freedoms, had also taken _his_ freedom away. He would no longer contribute to the means that drove his kind underground for fear of discovery. His pursuits now turned to those of the arts, history, and philosophy. Even in these more abstract realms, no question, if it piqued his curiosity enough, would remain unanswered before him.

He signed the contract and sent it back. Within an hour, he had his luggage packed and waiting in his car.

The four-hour drive dragged, with Tokyo traffic slowed in the snow and wearing at his patience until he reached the building that would be his new home. An adolescent youkai, appearing somewhere in his mid-thirties in human years, whose name tag read ‘Tanaka’, greeted him with the expected amount of deference in the lobby. Keys exchanged hands. Youki flared, but only in one direction. This young pup knew his place.

A similar exchange occurred with the flea in the morning. Rather like looking at an ant through a magnifying glass, the human-sized Myouga made a comical sight. Sesshoumaru received the keys to his office, some further paperwork to fill in, and an ID badge that would gain him access to, among other places, the library—the destination which he anticipated the most when he’d first ventured out into the cold.

“Have you any news regarding the archives?” he asked the flea offhand, speaking through the scarf still wrapped around his neck as he tucked the ID into his coat pocket.

“Ah, well, yes, as to that—er… yes, if you will excuse me—” and Myouga dropped his human guise, shrinking to an almost imperceptible pinpoint against the ghastly speckle-patterned tile floor of the faculty building, and disappeared in a crack in the baseboards.

Sesshoumaru’s amusement at this display won over his displeasure at the obvious and poorly executed evasion. The flea would pay in due time for his deceit, should the lure of the archives turn out an untruth. It made no difference _now_, what with the papers already signed and submitted. But if he had lied to get him here, though, what truly fueled his urgency for Sesshoumaru to accept this position?

Surely not _Naraku_. Nuisance he may be, but hardly worth such preemptive panic.

A_ question worthy of an answer_, he smiled to himself, _and a slight worthy of a punishment._ Myouga would know to expect retribution, but even despite that prospect, the flea perennially found a way to have some kind of fun at Sesshoumaru’s expense.

Familiar with the campus from his time here as a student fifteen years prior, and as faculty another hundred before that, he found his unerring way through an inch and a half of melting snow to the library. A few hours in here, surrounded by the knowledge of his human…—not forbearers, but contemporaries from lifetimes before, perhaps?—and he could outline the syllabi for the two courses his contract obligated him to teach. It would be quick work, with his near eidetic memory.

The blast of warm air and the smell of books as he entered the building triggered a familiar and welcome nostalgia. Stomping the slush from his shoes, he shed his scarf, draping it over his messenger bag, and tucked his gloves into his pocket. With a naturally high body temperature, he barely noticed the cold, but appearances must be maintained. Very little about the library had changed, aside from the librarian. A human this time, though judging from her current conversation with a student, adequately knowledgeable regardless.

He bypassed the front desk, flashing his ID, and headed without hesitation to the history section.

An hour passed.

He hit on a reasonably interesting topic for his first course—Propaganda and film, the repackaging of history to make it saleable for the box office and marketable for political profit. As it happened he had several articles published on the subject which he could use in supplement to the university’s resources. After ascertaining that the library stocked all the requisite films in its catalogue as well as the texts he would want the students to read, he became immersed in rereading a passage written by an acquaintance of his during the war. The library faded away from his consciousness as he pored over the text.

And then his skin began to prickle and burn the way a human’s might when too long in the sun.

His head shot up. He filtered through all the noises and smells around him before alighting on those that were relevant to this remotely familiar and unpleasant sensation: fresh, cold winter air, brought in on the warm skin of a young woman. Tears; recent ones. Her breathing would hitch intermittently, she would sniffle. Her steps were close together and light—a petite woman, and walking closer.

Sesshoumaru tensed.

A wave of pink energy rushed over him, frenetic, electric, and then passed him by, as though not registering his presence. From a few aisles down, he heard her begin plucking books from the shelves—the soft slide of dust jackets moving against each other as she drew one volume out and into her arms. Then she moved further still. A sound like a pillow deflating and he imagined her collapsing in an undoubtedly inelegant manner into the plush cushioned armchair in the far corner.

Pages began to turn. Her breathing regulated. The trace scent of tears faded. The blazing fire of reiki disappeared just the same way. It wasn’t uncommon for humans to have latent spiritual powers; he had not witnessed anything remotely this powerful, however, in years.

A Miko, then.

The prospect niggled, but Sesshoumaru relaxed. Miko nowadays were all but useless. His skin already shed its pinkened hue and returned to its normal coloring, the burn healed. He resumed his reading.

Hours passed without disturbance.

When the woman stood again, she must have recalled whatever agitated her before, because she sniffled and the wet salt of tears drifted through the air. In tandem with it, a flood of pink washed out from around her.

Suddenly out of patience with this whole scenario, Sesshoumaru resorted to a trick he never before stooped to employ. Powerful enough to instill fear in even the strongest of _his_ kind, emotional manipulation of humans was always unnecessary, and so decidedly _below _him. He broadcast his calm, sending a tendril of youki in her direction and projecting his imperturbable placidity, drawing a meditative breath to reinforce it. When the reiki receded readily in response, his eyes snapped open, brow furrowing. Something in the way it moved struck him as unexpected.

Oh. She _moved closer_ to him, rather than away. Atypical, for a Miko. Curiosity piqued, he continued to soothe her from a distance, listening to the way the air displaced around her as she drifted in his direction. He got to his feet, grabbed his belongings, and crossed over to the opposite side of the bookshelf she now stood before.

A Miko with an aberrant response to calming from a youkai was, by definition, aberrant, though not sufficiently enough to keep his attention for any length of time. Regardless, he would like to file this moment in his memory; a rare occurrence in his rather dull daily life. If he could catch a glimpse of her, a face to pair with the odd events of the day in the catalogue of his memory…

So he shadowed her, still sending her his calm, stepping in parallel to her, waiting for her to draw a book that would have her looking up just enough that he might see her face. Eventually, her fingers closed around one that coincided with an empty space on his side of the shelf. From the gap that formerly housed the volume now in her hands, a pair of blue eyes, like the morning sky reflecting off the water, fixed on him.

He took in the heart-shape of her face, the sweet plumpness of her lips, the raven-black of her hair. A conventionally attractive woman. A small ‘ah’ escaped her, and he noted the pleasant quality of her voice. Her hand shot up to her neckline and clenched at the glassy pink bauble hanging there on a white gold chain.

_Ah_.

He averted his eyes and departed, aware that, yet again—despite having _seen _him and likely realizing what he was, and despite her instinct to shield what could only be the Shikon no Tama around her neck—she followed after him.

This, then, would be the reason for Myouga’s insistence that he accept the position as Guest Lecturer.

-+-

From his seat in his academic office, he caught a whiff her faint, fresh scent, and frowned deeply.

It aggrieved him.

Introducing himself at the wake had seemed harmless enough. He could hardly avoid it, the way her eyes chased him about the room. Sesshoumaru, well aware that the females of the human species found him irresistibly attractive—indeed, as did female youkai—found himself surprised that a Miko should openly give in to such base feelings in spite of all her training. The quick introduction should have marked an end to their acquaintance. She mentioned that she had not signed up for his courses, and his relief at the thought of being rid of her remained with him for weeks.

Instead, Higurashi Kagome, upon whom he intended keeping a distant eye, had managed to wriggle her way into his routine.

The initial blame for this could be cast squarely at Myouga’s feet, as per usual. She came one morning, knocking on Sesshoumaru’s door, ever so apologetic for interrupting him, if she might just have a minute of his time? “Myouga-sensei referred me to you…” and of course he had, directing her to Sesshoumaru to procure some volume that they _both_ kept copies of in their respective offices. He proffered the book with minimal fuss. But the loaning of a book necessitates the returning said book; not several days later she reappeared, just as he began pouring coffee. Maintaining his persona meant offering her a cup too.

He expected that she would decline, but she accepted. He _expected_ that she would take this as an invitation for more than a coffee—that it might include conversation, or even be misinterpreted as an inappropriate advance on a student. Instead, she subverted his expectations yet again by sipping quietly as she browsed his shelves. She _did _ask if she might borrow another book, but then remained silent until she selected her chosen volume, set down her empty cup, thanked him, and politely excused herself.

A devious strategy, deserving of some respect.

Her visits became a part of his routine each week, now, even an anticipated part—a little, anyway. He appreciated unobtrusive company. As far as humans went, she was polite, quiet, and clean. He tolerated her.

Well. Perhaps a bit more than that.

She piqued his curiosity. Her steadfast interest in him, absent of any aggression, so blatantly contrary to Miko doctrine… perhaps she had not been formally trained? But even untrained, to be the carrier of the Shikon no Tama, she would know what he was. What then, motivated her? To try and tempt him, corner him into some attempt to try and take the stone, and then what?

Did she think that a daiyoukai such as he would lower himself so as to attempt to revive it for its power? Utterly ridiculous. He honestly could not fathom what thoughts and plans ran through her mind, where usually human motivations were transparent to him. This made her a puzzle.

And his curiosity demanded satisfaction.

Further complicating matters were the various gnats buzzing around her, each to their own nefarious ends. There was the boy—Hojo, was it? He would dispose of himself, of that much Sesshoumaru felt certain. Higurashi held a passing interest in him only, one dependent entirely on the convenience of his overtures toward her.

_Inconceivable _that a woman could ever consider _Hojo_ when they had Sesshoumaru to admire; but then, he was frustrating Higurashi’s tentative attempts at furthering her acquaintance, and she would need somewhere to redirect her affections.

Regardless of Sesshoumaru’s lack of reciprocation, Hojo would not do for her. Useless human trash; how Hojo had been accepted as a graduate student at this fine university was beyond him. His reading comprehension and writing style capped out at third-grade level at best. She would see him for the nothing he was without any interference on Sesshoumaru’s part.

Then there was the other pest. One Sesshoumaru knew would make a nuisance of himself, though what form this would take had been uncertain at the start. _That_ picture was becoming progressively clearer over the course of the last few days.

In most ways, it felt a curse that his office should be so close to the spider hanyou’s—the case of divining and interceding in his interests and plans, however, happened to be the sole exception. Perhaps Naraku was forgetful of Sesshoumaru’s superior hearing, or perhaps he was merely an idiot. He said a lot, and let a lot go said in the room down the hall from Sesshoumaru’s office.

Usually, Sesshoumaru’s policy was to steadfastly ignore any words that passed that mongrel’s lips. But just a few days prior, a conversation occurred that caught his interest.

“I’m a little concerned about you, Higurashi-kun.” Naraku’s voice. “Your attendance is good, but your participation is poor. You always sit in the back of the classroom, hide behind your laptop, and you’re always the first to leave.”

This did not fit with Sesshoumaru’s perception of Higurashi at all.

“I have a study group that meets afterwards,” came Higurashi’s weak protest.

“I have my students use their ID numbers on their assignments for anonymity’s sake—so that there can be no question of favoritism or otherwise. I won’t know which is yours as I grade it. But I am invested in your success, Higurashi-kun. Chiaki-sensei was a respected colleague in the field and he spoke highly of you. Please come speak to me after the grades are returned, regardless of the result.” A pause. “Now if I’m not mistaken, Sesshoumaru-kun is expecting you.”

_Oh?_ Sesshoumaru forced himself to focus on the _unexpectedness_ of that conclusion, rather than the affront at the casual means by which Naraku referred to him. Higurashi did not visit him with _regularity_, though certainly with some frequency.

“Aotsuki-sensei is?” Higurashi sounded as surprised as Sesshoumaru felt.

“You have something of a standing appointment, from what I understand. Or am I mistaken?”

“Not a standing appointment, no. I go to him for resources sometimes.”

He scoffed and dismissed her. “I’ll see you next week, Higurashi-kun.”

Belying her assertion in Naraku’s office, she came directly to _his_ and shut the door behind her, inhaling deeply as though taking a cleansing breath, purging her lungs of the stink of the hanyou. A blithe misdirection when he asked whether something was the matter, and then they resumed their usual routine as she moved over to what had become ‘her seat’.

Which brought him back to what had originally started this train of thought.

Sesshoumaru paused in his idle reflections, swiveling in his office chair to look at the red-upholstered seat opposite his desk, the source of the faint trace of Kagome’s fresh scent, slowly imbuing itself into the material over her repeated visits. Perhaps this was a part of her ploy. Play upon his strengths, use his senses against him, embed her scent into his office until… until she achieved whatever her mysterious ends were. He wrinkled his nose and refocused.

Naraku had his eye on the Shikon no Tama, or on Kagome. Or on both. Sesshoumaru’s would bet that the hanyou cur, in his greed, desired the woman _and_ the jewel. Sesshoumaru would make it his business to see that the scum attained precisely neither.

If for no other reason than to see his ambitions frustrated.

That fresh scent reached him again and his nose twitched. He had to get out of his office.

The humid summer air, an oppressive force, pushed in on him from all sides, but he relished the heat. It called him back to afternoons centuries before, wandering the countryside under a high sun, accountable to nobody but himself. The walk back to his rental apartment was brief, but enough to clear his lungs and clear his mind. Just as in his youth, the walking became a practice much like meditation; he timed his breathing to each step, focusing on the rhythm and the movement, the shift of weight, the transfer of energy.

As he neared the convenience store, the doors parted. For a moment he thought it was a trick of the senses; the distraction from the meditation bringing previous thoughts of a certain Miko to the fore, summoning her smell to mind. Instead, his gaze followed the scent trail to see the very woman, crouched low, tip-toeing out the doors as though they had not just announced her exit, a ridiculous yellow umbrella with a duck-head handle and a shopping bag clutched firmly in her hand.

The humidity concentrated the scent rolling off her skin. It clung to her the way the tendrils of her dark hair curled and clung to her neck where they had escaped from that haphazard up-do. Socks and shoes sodden, drips of gritty water splattered against the pallor of her legs. She was utterly ridiculous, but he could admit to himself that the lone curl caressing the turn of her neck, at least, suited his aesthetics. The reflective quality of her blue eyes in the fluorescent light illuminating her from above did too.

As though possessed, his lips parted and spoke her name. “Higurashi-kun,” he greeted her, zeroing in on the rising goosebumps over her arms and clavicles at the sound of his voice. Her startled eyes fixed on him, a fawn in the headlights, or one perceiving that it had been sighted by a beast of prey. Having spoken, he committed to the interaction and moved to stand before her. She wavered, rocking slightly back then forward on her feet. “Are you lost?” he asked.

A wry twist to her lips then, and a self-deprecating laugh. “In a way.” She touched her cheek, skimmed the finger along to her neck. A self-conscious gesture, or a flirtatious one?

“Skipping through puddles?”

She laughed outright at this.

If he hadn’t seen Naraku’s face appear at the glass, he would not have invited her to follow him. But the command spoken, he had no choice but to lead her _someplace_, and there could be no place to take her but his own apartment. He did this, fully aware that this would mean that her scent would infiltrate his living quarters as well—but at least there, it would not linger.

A small sacrifice to make, in the service of his greater plans.

-+-

Unfortunately, three things occurred in rapid succession to make a mockery of his intentions for a well-preserved distance. Any one of them on its own would have been easily ignored, but in combination, the three became quite unsurmountable.

The first, no more than an email sent to his grossly under-utilized fan-mail account.

_ Aotsuki-sensei,_

_I have not been a long-time reader of your works. In fact, I only picked them up recently after meeting you in person. You write very well and I appreciate the insights in your books and whatnot but let_ _’s get to the real issue here. I have a question or two about some of the sources you cited in The Thirteen-Day Emperor. I wasn’t able to find copies of at least two of them in our departmental library, and even Matsuda-san with all of her librarian powers couldn’t clue me in any better. What are the chances you still have some of those reference materials? I always appreciate when you make recommendations to me regarding my research, but somehow I feel that there has been a glaring omission in your recommendations (see above)! Thank you for stepping in the other day. Next time, we can dry off at my place. It’s only a few blocks further down the road._

_\- An anonymous fan. Of sorts._

Higurashi wrote this while inebriated, so much was obvious. And judging by the time stamp of the email, she had likely been drinking for quite a while. He found the missive humorous enough, and easily forgotten. ‘A fan’, she called herself. When it was obvious that her interests in him were far from academic.

What they _were_, though… romantic, certainly, up to a point. This must be in addition to something _more_, though what that could be remained beyond his imagination.

The second event occurred about a week later.

Arriving on his floor of the faculty building, he heard Naraku’s voice; he smelled Higurashi’s humid skin. He slowed his pace.

“Indeed. You saw Myouga-sensei yesterday, I am aware. He spoke to me about your meeting this morning. I would prefer you to come to me with any questions you may have. My own meeting with him was uncomfortable and I would much rather that not color our interactions.”

Sesshoumaru paused unconsciously in time with the pause in that little speech—an old habit of stalking prey.

“It did little more than confirm my suspicions about your penchant for that kind of misbehavior, Kagome-kun. Not the impression you were intending to leave, I’m sure.”

A chair scraped back. Heavy footprints; not the soft, delicate tread of the young Miko. Her breathing hitched. By the time Sesshoumaru reached the doorway, Naraku stood poised over Higurashi like a vulture circling carrion, extending a hand as though reaching to touch her, to wrap his fingers around the flesh of her upper arm.

Sesshoumaru’s lips firmed in displeasure. This stopped _now. _“Higurashi.”

As though his voice broke the thrall Naraku had cast, Kagome startled away from the danger in front of her almost reflexively before turning toward Sesshoumaru, shooting him a look of unrestrained appreciation and delight.

Naraku’s eyes, however, burned; his lips curled in disdain.

While returning Naraku’s glare with unaffected blandness, Sesshoumaru found he needed to instruct the human once more; she seemed entirely lost without his guidance. “Go home, Higurashi.”

She ducked her head and made her way past him through the door.

“It’s past time to be having student meetings, Naraku-sensei,” he admonished, as cold and imperious as ever he acted around the mongrel. “You wouldn’t want to give the wrong impression.”

Once the echo of the human’s little footprints had disappeared down the hall, Naraku’s posture relaxed. He leaned composedly against the desk. “Whatever impression might that be? That I invite my students over for coffee dates behind closed doors, perhaps…? Or to my apartment for clandestine dinners?”

There was no need to remind Naraku that Higurashi was _not_ his student—the hanyou merely attempted to bait him, to make him defensive. His comment merited no answer, so he offered none. Instead he took a leisurely look around the office. The barren shelves, the basic office furniture, the lack of pride. He breathed in—oddly, a trace of… was that _wolf_? Did a wolf youkai number amongst the students in their department?—and then returned his gaze to Naraku, who appeared quite tickled by Sesshoumaru’s blatant appraisal, not caring in the least that he’d been found lacking.

Sesshoumaru turned on his heel, leaving the smirking spider behind him. He found he had no taste for occupying the same building as his _co-worker_, and so, though he had just arrived, started down the stairs on his way out. As he passed through the foyer, he saw a yellow duck umbrella. Had Higurashi run home in the rain? She had a penchant for such odd behaviours. Which made it then, quite honestly, a surprise that he found Higurashi still there on the side-walk. Even more surprising: how incredibly shaken she appeared, her face pale, her breathing tremulous.

Feeling responsible for her current state, he bid her come, and she followed like a lost puppy.

The smell of wolf seemed stuck in his nose.

She remained unnaturally quiet, though well-mannered as always, throughout their walk and as he let them into the apartment. A bottle of wine was in order. Considering her still ashen face, he thought it prudent to ask “Are you alright?”, the way a concerned human party might.

She sighed, setting her glass down. “I still don’t believe it happened. I mean, what even happened? It’s so surreal.”

There must be context here that he had missed. What he witnessed did not justify this level of shock. Something must have happened—something that he did not know about.

The very idea irked him.

“That cur needs to be taught his place,” he ground out, wishing said cur’s bones between his teeth just then. He’d snap them in half and suck out the marrow.

“How much did you hear?” she probed.

“Enough,” was his terse reply. He scrunched his nose. Something niggled at him.

She seemed unable to sit still, first standing, then sitting, then standing again. Glass of wine in hand, she headed into the living area to settle on one of the couches.

When she drifted away from him, the something that niggled finally clicked into place. He stood, following her footsteps, noting her scent trail. When he sat beside her, he leaned just the slightest bit forward to better decode the information his nose was sending him.

The smell of wolf.

It hadn’t originated in Naraku’s office, and thence gotten stuck in his olfactory system.

It was _stuck to her skin_.

_This_ was the third thing. The thing that, combined with the other two, made a mockery of his intentions for a well-preserved distance.

“Thank you for stepping in,” she said, blissfully unaware of the sirens clamoring in the cavern of his skull.

He said nothing, but stared.

Maybe it was a blow to his pride. Hojo he could forget; a human outlet when she could not hope to attain her true desire. Someone not worthwhile of Sesshoumaru’s attention or hers—and actually, he was fairly certain that Hojo _had_ already disappeared from Higurashi’s radar. But a _wolf_ youkai? And worse, one with whom she was _intimately _familiar.

An odor this strong couldn’t transfer from merely brushing against some stranger in passing.

This amounted to a _scent marking_. A _demonstration_.

And it filled him with something like anger, like wounded pride, or a sense of rejection, or—or, he wasn’t sure what—but his animal hind-brain wanted her to prove to him that given the choice, she would demonstrate her intelligence and make the _correct choice_.

She stared back at him now, perhaps unused to being the subject of such focused regard, cheeks coloring faintly, heartbeat quickening, skin becoming dewy once more, concentrating the scents on her skin.

Including the wolf’s.

And this, somehow, led to impulse overriding reason.

“I don’t receive a lot of fan-mail, Higurashi,” he said, voice pitched low.

She repeated his words weakly before realization brightened her eyes.

“And certainly not of that type.”

Even now, he could pull back. Leave it at light teasing.

But she hid her face in a throw-pillow and _groaned,_ such a sexually charged sound that whatever remained of his reason fled him entirely. Given the choice, she was intelligent enough to choose correctly. He moved closer to her side; her luminescent blue eyes sparkled up at him. A light touch to tip up her chin, and his lips fell on hers.

She seemed to fall too, into a trance, returning his kiss. When he pulled away to admire the effect he’d had on her, her eyes fluttered open, expression incredulous.

He could not supress his satisfied chuckle before he kissed her again. Her lips were warm and tasted a little of cherry-flavored lip balm, last reapplied hours ago. Her tongue hot and tentative, and sweet, so shy in its return of his explorations.

When her dainty little hand slid up to his chest, he lost any remaining hope. A groan, and his hands moved automatically to her hips to slide her into his lap. She shifted immediately to accommodate him between the warm press of her thighs, and their spreading released a burst of the sweet scent of her center, sending his spiraling rationality into the depths of oblivion.

He needed more of her scent. _Needed_ it. Her hands were still on him, and her body pliant in his hold, openly enjoying the attentions of his hand on the small of her back and the kisses he peppered along her jaw, but otherwise quite still in his hold. When his nose and lips touched to her neck, nipping and kissing against the sensitive flesh there, her head lolled to the side, opening herself to him, and her hips jerked once, hard, before beginning a light grinding against him.

This sign of submission was so artlessly done that he lost his breath.

But his hands knew no such pause, one winding tighter around her torso, the other daring lower, kneading over her shorts to caress the nearest fleshy mound of her buttocks, encouraging the slight back-and-forth shifting, the downward press against his growing excitement.

And then her phone rang, vibrating in her pocket.

She practically bolted from his embrace, someone’s name on her lips, and then with a speed he had not seen except perhaps in Olympic athletes, made for the door.

When it slammed behind her, he resumed breathing.

Taking in his state of disarray, the increasing tightness in his groin, his elevated heart rate and the rapidity of his breath, he reflected.

The phone call had been fortunate.

This had been a colossal mistake.

A _colossal_ mistake.

He could only regret that this ‘Sango’ person had not decided to call about five minutes earlier, to spare him the rising sense of his own humiliation, his weakness, his complete and utter lack of control. But though this ship had somehow ended up in troubled waters, he could still correct the course. He would make it perfectly clear to Higurashi that this had been an error on both their parts; a nightmare never to be repeated.

The decision gave him a renewed confidence in his own rectitude, in his superiority over his baser instincts.

It did not take away the unpleasant sting at seeing Higurashi in the company the wolf, not so many nights later. Especially when it became clear to him with_ which_ wolf in particular she had been consorting.

The very same riffraff that once kept company with his sire’s hanyou son, Inuyasha.

Fate had a way of playing these kinds of tricks, after all. It liked symmetry.

He would have to warn her about Prince Kouga. Wolves… wolves were beneath her.

And perhaps he might spare the time to have a word with that feral runt as well, to keep him away, just to make sure that the poor girl could recover from her inevitable heartbreak at Sesshoumaru’s rejection in peace.

It was the least he could do.

-+-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How are we doing? Not too shabby? A little interesting? Stay with me—this young man has a lot of emotional growth to undergo yet!  
-Regarding the title: 四季咲き (しきざき) (Shikizaki) Means blooming in each season  
-The waka at the beginning of each chapter are English translations of 5-7-5-7-7 syllable poems by Tonna, which I am excerpting from the book Just Living: Poems and Prose by the Japanese Monk Tonna, by Steven D. Carter.  
This one is about age; morning glories are symbols of ephemerality. Anyone want to take a stab at how it relates to the chapter?  
-This story is already complete, so expect the next chapter on Sunday, September 8th!  



	2. Act II Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When finalizing revisions, I realized that this chapter was too long (it’s 40+ pages!), and while I usually have no qualms posting long chapters, I felt I needed to split it. So this chapter has been divided into three. They’re all done, though, so don’t worry about delays! Will still be updating weekly and on time.
> 
> Important poll in chapter-end Author’s notes—please take a moment to reply!

-+-

**Shikizaki : An Omikuji Variation**

Act II Part I

-+-

In my Mountain Home—

a snowfall

one wants to save

from trails of footprints.

How could one claim

to welcome

a visitor who comes today? 

-+-

He could no longer sit on his couch.

He never spent much time on it to begin with. After Higurashi made her escape on the night of his most shameful loss of control, but before he saw her with the wolf-prince, he surprised himself by sitting there, the pillow she rubbed her face into held tightly in his lap, his fingers stroking thoughtlessly over the fabric. The third time he caught himself doing this, he put a stop to any couch-sitting in the home until he could have a cleaning service come in and wipe her scent out of the upholstery entirely.

Even then, he swore that he could catch the flavor and the warmth of her skin on the air as he walked through his living room. This must be his imagination, however. Scent did not remain that long—not with how assiduously he cycled the air in his apartment, windows open despite the infernal heat outside.

He knew she was faultless in this; _he_ had been the one to lose control. He noted her attraction, of course. But she remained in a holding pattern, and would never have acted on those inclinations; would never have crossed that line were it not for his invitation to do so. She had not misbehaved, merely been the vehicle for his misbehavior. He did not resent her.

He could not blame her for being present when he found himself agitated _just so,_ and perfectly ready to act out on those feelings.

In centuries past, he never gave this kind of pressure a chance to build up. He would immediately relieve it via the release of his aggression on those that aggrieved him. These days, he forced himself to bottle those feelings, lest he wind up under investigation for homicide—the killing of humans in even the single digits, generally considered rather a heinous offence.

The fault did not lie at her feet, he firmly believed that. Granted, certain of her attributes he considered in line with his aesthetics, and he appreciated her company as far as he could a human’s, but it may as well have been anyone else—he would very likely have found himself in exactly the same situation, were some other rather pretty human woman sitting on his couch at the time. Higurashi’s unfortunate presence, a matter of circumstance, formed the _vehicle_ for his misbehavior, not the cause. As a result, he felt predisposed to be generous and see through his idea of forewarning her about the wolf, and of warning the wolf away from her.

Two action items easily completed. And yet.

And yet, somehow, Kagura found a way to foil at least the former part of his plans. Still another nuisance—daughter of a sort to Naraku, chained to him via his possession of her heart. Forced to do his bidding. Sesshoumaru’s pity, however, only extended so far. If she truly coveted freedom, there were ways she could obtain it. Some of them could even count as community service, were she to, say, rid them of that hanyou pestilence once and for all.

But she did nothing of the kind, only continued in her servitude to the half-demon spider, all the while bemoaning her fate.

Of late, Kagura made it her business to be in _his_ business. When Naraku tasked her with the mission of obtaining the Shikon no Tama for him, Kagura apparently decided that her highest chances of achieving this end lay in enticing Sesshoumaru into taking it for her. Never mind the endless phone calls, she also accosted him in public to plead her case.

The first such occasion happened in his office, and Higurashi played the unfortunate bystander. Kagura attempted two tacks—a formally worded request, which she had undoubtedly expected to succeed, though _why_ he could not fathom, followed by an outraged railing against him for failing to fall in line with her plans. She ran on endlessly, voice increasing in pitch and intensity, gestures growing wilder and more uncontrolled, the picture of feminine wrath.

He tuned her out with such success that he barely noticed when she lost steam and fled from the room. A pleasant, fresh scent infiltrated his nostrils, though the markings of anxiety tangled with it, and Sesshoumaru sighed to himself. He did not relish the prospect of breaking Higurashi’s heart, nor the tears that would doubtless follow, but it must be done. He walked to the door, and on seeing Higurashi waiting for him there, stepped back and to the side to allow her to precede him into the room.

She did as he bid, ducking her head and avoiding eye-contact as she entered. He brushed past her to seat himself back behind his desk, the clamor of her heartbeat in his ears. “Coffee?” He offered, and without waiting for her reply, turned to the machine behind him.

When he set the mug down before her, Higurashi thanked him with a soft voice and took a sip, peeking up at him from under her lashes. An unintentionally inviting look. He watched her openly, but didn’t speak. She set the mug down and pushed a book—one of his previous loans to her—across the desk. “Thank you, as always. It was really useful.”

“Hn.” He waited, watching her, knowing what would follow.

Higurashi cleared her throat. “About the other day–”

He swiveled in his chair, turning to face his computer. “A matter best left to rest,” he said tightly, and set about opening his email, attempting to tune her out the way he had Kagura. Yet somehow, this time, success escaped him, his inattention no more than a farce.

In his peripheral vision, Higurashi nodded dumbly and stood, chair rattling behind her. “I didn’t mean–”

He looked up at her again, daring her to continue. His piece spoken, he had no further desire to discuss it.

They never got the chance for anything else, anyway. The door crashed open behind her and Kagura towered in its frame. “You know what, this conversation isn’t over, Sesshoumaru!” She turned her red-tinged eyes at Higurashi and sneered. “Do you mind?”

“I can see you’re busy,” Higurashi mumbled in response, and dashed out of the office, running away from him once again. All for the better. Their association would be detached after this. He need not worry anymore. In this way, he could almost thank Kagura for her interference, though her presumption continued to irritate.

Now, though…

Kagura’s timing couldn’t be worse on this occasion.

He had not seen Higurashi since Kagura’s interruption in their office. Well—that day, and that very same evening, when she sat on the bench outside the konbini, positively reeking of wolf and beer, singing a little ditty as she looked up at the stars. He should not have neglected his intention to warn the wolf away from her; as predicted, she sought solace from her broken heart in the wrong arms.

“Higurashi.”

She lowered her gaze from the heavens, eyes catching the glow of the fluorescent lights above her, the blue of her irises whirling like the galaxies she had been serenading a moment before. “Konbanwa, Aotsuki-sensei.”

He stepped close, eyes narrowing slightly as he took another whiff of her scent. The pungent fragrance of wolf, alarmingly fresh, caused his lips to part once more and ask, “are you alright?”

“Mm?” A lopsided grin, followed by a hiccup marked the extent of her inebriation. “I’m sorry, I’m fine, thank you.”

The automatic doors of the konbini opened, and a gust of cool air preceded the wolf prince into the parking lot. Without so much as acknowledging Sesshoumaru, he leaned over Higurashi where she perched on the bench, and pressed a bottle of cold water into her hands before tipping it up to her lips. Higurashi gulped it down. “Ready to go?” the wolf asked.

“Hm?” She swallowed. “Oh, yeah. Okay. Good night, Aotsuki-sensei.”

Kouga looked up, made eye-contact. “Yo,” he grunted in greeting, turning his nose up.

Sesshoumaru, angering, returned the dismissive gesture.

“Let’s go, Kagome. It’s getting late,” the prince said, though his eyes remained fixed on the daiyoukai in front of him.

She sighed and stood, and Kouga pushed the bottle up to her lips again, still eyeing Sesshoumaru, flaunting their casual intimacy. Looping his arm around her shoulders, he started them off back toward the sidewalk. Higurashi followed along, too far gone to make much of anything, especially not the low growl Kouga released at Sesshoumaru over her shoulder, when he saw the daiyoukai watching them depart.

Sesshoumaru would never admit to the amount of fuming and pacing that followed this event. The wolf had _no right_—

Those _demonstrations_—

Sesshoumaru’s decision to follow through on his previous promises to warn Higurashi about the wolf doubled down. But he rarely crossed paths with her, now that she avoided his office, and so when he spotted her outside of the library, heedless of the wolf at her side, he called her name.

This is when Kagura found him once again. “Sesshoumaru!” she cried, and his eyebrow twitched at the blatant lack of respect. “There you are!”

“Kagome—” Kouga started on a whisper, but then corrected himself to her last name, loudly enough this time so that she might hear.

Another one who behaved in an overly familiar fashion.

Sesshoumaru raised his eyes skyward, jaw working in impatience before stopping this outward display of irritation. Wolf and Miko were making their escape. Kagura, gracious enough to at least wait until they were out of human earshot, then used her powers to run the breeze the other direction to prevent the prince from eavesdropping before she jabbed her finger impertinently into Sesshoumaru’s chest.

He turned his head, unwilling to countenance yet another round of her pathetic pleading.

She started talking. He started walking.

They wound up at a park halfway across the city.

“It’s _dead_,” she protested in the face of his absolute refusal. “It’s worthless. He can’t _do_ anything with it, he won’t be a danger at all.” Her face had turned as red as her eyes with the exertion of trying for the better part of an hour to convince him, or perhaps trying to keep pace with his long strides.

Her adamance made him wonder at her truthfulness. “All excellent reasons why I should not find myself concerned if he _were_ to obtain it, but not one of them sufficient to entice me to act in his interests, or yours.”

“Please, Sesshoumaru-sama,” unaccountably deferential all of a sudden, she must be wrapping up this attempt, to stoop to such paltry tricks. “I’m begging you.”

“And yet I am unmoved.” If only he could be rid of her, he might actually get to enjoy an outing in this little pocket of nature at last. “Allow me to make clear to you exactly where I stand on this matter.”

Were he a lesser being, he might lower himself to tactics of intimidation: crowding her, or staring her down, or pressing toward her his intent to kill. But Sesshoumaru’s strength was a thing of legend, as was his ruthlessness. He had no need to suggest the possibility of her coming to harm should she persist. She would be perfectly aware of that risk, though she likely counted on his patience, also a thing of great renown, to spare her.

So he did not intimidate. He turned his face into the breeze and, filtering out the smog of the city and the odors of its inhabitants, as well as the rank fetor of the spider hanyou clinging to his nearest neighbor, focused on the nuances of sun-warmed leaves and flowers instead. “You will desist in plaguing me on this subject. Regardless of how you frame your request, this Sesshoumaru will not entertain it.” A tilt of his chin downward as he redirected his gaze to his nails made Kagura reel backward a step. She likely expected him to strike her. His disgust at Naraku doubled. “If you persist, Kagura, your end will not be long in coming.”

A sharp inhalation accompanied another step back.

“Is the matter clear to you now?”

Her, “perfectly, Sesshoumaru-sama,” came as no more than a breath on the breeze as she vanished into the wind, making good on the opportunity for escape.

At last, alone in this corner of wildness, he allowed himself to relax.

-+-

Myouga sat behind his large desk, attempting to look eminent, perhaps, with his chin resting on interlaced fingers. But human-sized Myouga never failed to get a (usually internal) chuckle from Sesshoumaru. The cragginess of his wrinkles. The beadiness of his eyes. He had a long nose as a human, where his little blood-sucking stinger would be if he were in his youkai form. The students loved him. Higurashi Kagome in particular made a habit of coming to this office on more occasions than a typical semester might warrant, Myouga’s standing as the dean of the department considered. And Myouga, it seemed, possessed a soft spot for Higurashi in turn.

Myouga invited Sesshoumaru to lecture this semester because of her, after all, at least in part.

And she constituted the absolute only reason that he requested Sesshoumaru’s presence in his office today.

“Have you heard anything concerning at all about Higurshi’s academic performance?” This, the flea’s opening line.

As far as conversational hooks went, it functioned remarkably well. Sesshoumaru fancied himself at least partially responsible for the extraordinary success that Higurashi could boast in her classes. After all, she regularly utilized him as a resource, and he provided her with direction whenever she needed assistance on her academic writing. Perhaps not directly, but she _had_ checked out every single one of his books from the library. This, and her professors praised her to him on more than one occasion. These events felt linked in his mind.

“Concerning? To the contrary. She has been praised to the point of near-excess, in the range of my hearing,” he replied.

“With one exception, I’m sure.”

“With one exception, yes.” Naraku. It need not be said aloud; they both knew.

“I have recently had several requests to act as reference on her behalf, Sesshoumaru-sama.” Myouga’s frown grew, bringing a marked furrow between his brows. Deep enough to insert a hundred-yen coin, Sesshoumaru was positively certain. “As you can imagine, with her being a highly meritorious student, I have provided glowing commendations of her work and praises of her character. High, but realistic ones, of course.”

“And yet,” Sesshoumaru added on, knowing where this conversation headed.

“Higurashi-kun has yet to approach me or notify me of any success in securing a summer internship.” He paused. “All requests for referrals were also directed to her academic supervisor, as a matter of course.”

Sesshoumaru’s patience with the hanyou’s manipulations and machinations grew thinner by the second.

They sat in silence, Myouga’s brow twitching every so often as he fought to keep the gravity in his facial expression.

Sesshoumaru, not blind to the manipulations and machinations of the flea in front of him either, nonetheless found them remarkably less offensive than the half-breed’s. He held his sense of moral rectitude as unimpeachable, after all, and Myouga’s attempts to steer him were in the service of justice.

He must consider things carefully. Naraku wanted the jewel. He wanted to ruin Kagome’s academic reputation for some nefarious end—and a self-serving one, no doubt. But he did not constitute the whole of her problems; a most persistent and undesirable wolf currently hounded her too, and given what Sesshoumaru had seen of the two of them recently, he grew increasingly convinced that she would fold to Kouga’s questionable charms eventually. No mountain existed that could not be ground to dust in the face of a strong and persistent wind, after all.

No matter how malodorous the wind.

“I take it that you expect me to intercede on her behalf,” was the reply he favored after a long consideration.

“I defer to my betters, in all things.” This, Myouga’s suitably obsequious reply.

Sesshoumaru stood to go.

“Incidentally…”

Sesshoumaru waited for the flea to continue, but when no further words followed, he swallowed his irritation and asked, “yes?”

“The unearthing of the archives should be complete within a month or so. I will notify you immediately, of course. Some very interesting documentation has already popped up, as you may expect.”

Sesshoumaru returned to his seat. “Do tell.”

“Some personal diaries have been found. Of the Great Dog General himself. I’ll pass them on to you when I’m done restoring them.” The way Myouga’s fingers tapped on the desk, on a list of applications he had given Higurashi all those weeks ago, made it clear what the real conditions were for Sesshoumaru to receive them.

He did not need the additional incentive, and this blatant and tasteless manipulation angered him, but Sesshoumaru’s course of action had already been decided.

It necessitated some phone calls. The flea handed over the list, apologizing for not being privy to any other applications she might have submitted. Glancing at the sheet, he saw that it would be unimportant. He recognized the names of two of the institutions written there, and had contacts at both.

Yakumo-san at Ginryakusha, if she found it an odd request on his part, helped him happily enough. “I was surprised at this advisor-sensei’s interview,” she said, ostensibly flipping through some files, trying to locate the information on the student of reference. “Here it is. Nothing overt, but he made some _implications_, you know. Just a creepy-crawly enough feeling to set the hiring manager off pursuing her as a candidate.”

“What sort of implications?”

“Regarding this student and some of the faculty. You know we take integrity very seriously.”

“Of course; I suppose it makes no difference that those implications were not based in fact—”

“I wish it would. I trust your opinion of this Higurashi-san, of course, Aotsuki-sensei. And Myouga-sensei’s as well. But we have to be very careful. Any kind of cloud...”

He disconnected the call not long after, once she faxed him the documents that he needed and he confirmed their receipt.

As Sesshoumaru studied the report of Naraku’s interview, the hanyou’s death became an increasingly imminent prospect. Did Naraku truly think that Sesshoumaru would not find out that he implicated him in such a way...? In so dishonorable a deed as fraternization?

He had killed greater men and greater youkai for lesser offences.

This constituted yet another in a long line of marks against Naraku. Sesshoumaru’s decision, essentially made _for_ him, made him settle with calm.

He would destroy Naraku.

Not now.

But soon.

-+-

He smelled the wolf long before he saw him. The prince boasted that unique wolf _musk_, made stronger now by the ample sweat on his skin. The air tasted heavy with it, too—he’d been here for some time. Waiting for their mutual acquaintance, perhaps?

Sesshoumaru approached without shielding his presence, following his nose to an alleyway about a block from the konbini so conveniently placed between campus and Higurashi’s apartment. So the wolf would wait for her to pass, walk into the store, and accost her with the threat of his company on her way out, as casual as may be?

Though he saw the wolf prince in Higurashi’s company on many an occasion, he never bothered to truly _look_ at him before this. Ages passed since the last time they conversed—he could probably date it to before Inuyasha’s death. He appeared perhaps a little taller than Sesshoumaru remembered, and much more appropriately dressed. Sesshoumaru recalled disdaining the cub’s appearance, wrapped in tatty furs like some kind of cave-dweller…

In retrospect, however, the wolf tribes _were_ dwelling in caves in those days. Not so, now.

They glared at each other for a beat before Kouga found his voice. “Sesshoumaru,” he spat. The lack of honorific appended to Sesshoumaru’s name irked him, but Kouga was in fact a prince of his tribe, and therefore a social equal, if in title alone.

Though he clearly did not recognize when he faced his betters.

“Prince,” Sesshoumaru acknowledged, without rancor.

Kouga’s patience, apparently still as fleeting as in his youth, snapped. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Ah, yes. Truly an associate of Inuyasha’s. Mouth as foul as his stench. “I happen to live in the vicinity,” Sesshoumaru replied, as though Kouga asked out of curiosity rather than spite. “And what would a prince be doing, skulking about in the shadows, I wonder.”

Kouga released a harsh laugh. “Skulking! _You’re_ the one who’s been skulking. Around _Kagome_.”

Sesshoumaru tilted his head slightly, studying this most fascinating specimen.

“What the fuck do you even _want_ with her?” Kouga’s lips bared his teeth, and they vibrated ever so slightly, a growl manifesting in slow motion.

“What gives you the impression that I should want anything from her at all?” He stopped himself from adding more. Speak of the devil; her fresh scent approached them, and fast.

“You must think I’m an idiot, huh? The great Sesshoumaru _never _takes up with humans. You’re interested in _something_.” Kouga stopped holding back the growl, unheeding of any impending company. Could he not feel her close by? Could he not _smell_ her?

He must be quite lost in his anger to make himself so effectively blind.

Sesshoumaru glanced at the entrance of the alleyway, alighting on her figure before moving his eyes down to study his immaculate fingertips. “Perhaps, perhaps not.” He considered this reply unlikely to diffuse the situation, but his curiosity at how she would respond to a confrontation between youkai won out over concerns of prudence. “I fail to see your interest in this matter.”

Kouga took a menacing step forward. “Way to fucking play it coy, dog-breath.” Fists raised, level with his hips now. A rather performative pose. “I’ve made my ‘interest in this matter’ clear. Long before you. So back the fuck off.”

Sesshoumaru scoffed as he took a step forward. Another step. Kouga’s center of gravity retreated as he rocked back onto his heels and raised his fists. Visibly aggressive, but ineffective. Sesshoumaru was stronger; he was faster. Kouga would not emerge as victor.

Kouga moved to strike, but with the skill of long practice, Sesshoumaru evaded his punch and snapped his hand out, closing it around Kouga’s throat, raising him until his feet dangled in the air. Kouga’s hands scrabbled at Sesshoumaru’s forearms, trying to rip the fingers from their hold on his neck. His nails gouged into the skin, which healed prettily and immediately in their wake.

Slow. Weak. Ineffective.

A strand of silver hair fell into his face as Sesshoumaru leaned in, ignoring the overwhelming stench of his captive. Voice soft, private, he clinched his victory. “Do you fancy yourself strong enough to take what you believe I want away from me? You could never dream to be. And your Higurashi, object of your desires, would never allow you to, _given the choice_.”

Higurashi, though, could apparently stomach the violence no more; her body hurtled forward into the alley, eyes wide in panic. “What are you doing?” she cried.

Finally taking note of her arrival, Kouga wrenched himself from Sesshoumaru’s grasp, and Sesshoumaru let him go, backing up a respectful distance, waiting with bated breath to see the fallout of this little confrontation. It had been for her benefit, after all, that he should allow himself to be caught in so compromising a position. However atypically she behaved for her station, Higurashi was a Miko. Yes, one who might find a peaceable youkai easy to overlook. But a violent one? Would she attempt to—he almost laughed at the thought—_exorcise them?_

But rather contrary to his numerous hypotheses regarding what would follow, Kouga turned and smiled at her, casually, as though he hadn’t just been bested in their little scuffle. Higurashi blinked, confusion furrowing her brow. Sesshoumaru watched, waiting to take his cue from the both of them as to how to proceed.

“Hey babe,” Kouga said. “What’s up?”

_Babe? _Sesshoumaru frowned. _What an undignified—_

“What…” The color drained from her face, a look of incomprehension as her gaze flitted between them. “You were…”

The lies and excuses rolled from Kouga’s lips with charming ease, and Sesshoumaru played along with the charade for one reason alone: the seed of what could be a stunning realization had been planted, and he needed to see whether it would be confirmed.

Higurashi dismissed the wolf before Sesshoumaru’s conclusions could be verified, though it became apparent that she would not release Sesshoumaru until her obviously plentiful questions were answered. “What just happened?” she asked, unaware that though Kouga had disappeared from the limits of her meager human senses, he remained close by.

Here, a chance to rub the prince’s nose into his loss, two-fold. To claim yet another victory. “It is as the wolf says,” Sesshoumaru replied, voice dispassionate. He realized too late his error in calling Kouga a wolf—if his suspicions proved correct, then Higurashi would not know of his true nature—but dismissed it, ‘wolf’ being a common metaphor for a ne’er-do-well. He approached her, noting the satisfying increase in her heart rate, whether from fear or another type of arousal. “I have been attempting to catch you for some time,” he murmured, voice honeyed. “But you have been elusive.”

A flattering warm shade of pink blossomed in her cheeks. How charming. Her compliance in ensuring this final victory against Prince Kouga, even more so. He wrapped her dainty wrist in a gentle grip, tugging her marginally closer. “I’ve caught you,” he teased, marveling at the way her eyes widened as though hypnotized. Leaning in, to be sure the wolf could not hear, he whispered, “there is something important which I wish to discuss with you.” Louder, for the benefit of their eavesdropper, “Come.”

As every time before, she obeyed without question, following him with adoration in her eyes, incidentally, also for the benefit of their eavesdropper, who crept away unseen.

She seemed to shake off her daze as she took off her shoes in his apartment, a wariness settling into her posture. She followed him to the kitchen without a word; made no comment as he poured her a fairly fine Malbec. “You said, ‘something important’?” she asked, holding her wine glass tightly enough for her knuckles to turn white.

He verbalized his acknowledgement. “A certain acquaintance of mine –”

“The woman?” she interrupted. Her eyes squeezed closed, then, a grimace pulled her lips back. He knew that look; the look of those who spoke before thinking. Self-castigatory.

“Woman? You mean Kagura. No, not her.” He watched as a tooth pressed downward into her full lower lip. Waited. Would she pursue the topic further? But Higurashi remained silent, expression combative, refusing to give in to her own curiosity. And if she did not ask, she would not know. “An acquaintance of mine works for a museum company you may have heard of. Ginryakusha.”

Her heart-rate doubled; she nodded and sipped her wine.

He proceeded to explain that Yakumo-san had forwarded Higurashi’s information, _entirely coincidentally_, because she knew he wanted to hire someone to assist him over the summer with some research and clerical duties. This, of course, a blatant fiction, but Sesshoumaru could justify a little subterfuge when it served his ends so neatly, and especially when it also served to re-balance the scales of justice. Higurashi did not deserve Naraku’s slander, or the fallout that would arise from it in the years to come.

She agreed immediately. An expression of relief flitted across her face, followed by one of realization. Her cheeks blushed a brilliant rose.

Sesshoumaru’s nose began to tingle—the pleasant scent of the young woman before him increasing—and he reflected how becoming the blush of her cheeks made her countenance. The slight smell of ozone filtered through her budding fragrance, and the small hairs on his arms raised. A wash of reiki, once more, rising around her. She didn’t seem aware of it, only of whatever thoughts were coloring her face so prettily, her eyes averted and posture a touch stiff.

The idea he had been toying with before—the conclusion that needed corroboration—drifted through his mind. But he could not think on it. Her intensifying aroma flooding his senses with every inhalation, combined with the delicious puzzle she presented him... reason and rationality fled his grasp.

“Come by tomorrow to fill the requisite paperwork,” he commanded, setting his empty glass of wine down on the coffee table beside them.

He followed his nose, his instinct, which instructed him to move closer.

“Now then.” He pulled the wine glass from her grip and set it beside his. His hand reached for her face then, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear before gently grasping her chin. “Don’t run away this time.”

He hadn’t expected to seduce her. Or kiss her, even, for that matter. His intention in leaning in had been to touch his nose to her throat—admittedly an equally intimate gesture, though one which she, if his suspicions about her were correct, did not understand—but somehow his gaze latched on her lips as he neared, and redirected him there. A soft kiss at first. Uncertain, unintended.

She reached up to place her hand on his shoulder.

His body moved of its own volition.

Fingers managed clothing, traced sticky skin. But only for a moment. He wasted no time tossing her to the couch, climbing above her, taking in her state of disarray. Together they tugged at her top and pulled it over her head, then fumbled with the small white buttons on his crisp dress shirt. In that moment, looking up at him from below, eyes glossy with desire, flushed, reddened lips… she looked a temptress. Urging him to fall.

And he, damn it all, felt tempted.

Unbidden, his fingers traced a line from the side of her neck down over her clavicles, until they caught on the silver chain still clasped there. The Shikon no Tama. _It’s dead_, Kagura had said, though now, with the soft pink glow around Higurashi’s skin, its pink pearlescent shine seemed like more than a reflection of the ambient lighting.

She did not notice, later, too lost in the throes of passion, as his fingers undid the clasp. In fact, he exerted himself to be sure of her thorough and complete distraction.

But the dear girl seemed to regain her self-possession shortly after. Perhaps the fault lay within his encouragement of her use of his given name, rather than the false one attributed to his current persona. A disturbing impulse, but one which he could easily justify: no man likes to be called by another’s name, when with a beautiful woman in his arms.

She pushed him off with a sweet request to wait. He groaned and backed away, sitting back on his haunches, an explosive ire within him that she found a way to resist the pull, when he seemed helpless in the face of his desire to touch her. “What’s the matter?” Contrary to his inner feelings, his voice came out gentle, and he reached out to her, bringing her body closer to his own so he could nuzzle her hair, reassure himself with her pleasing scent.

“I’m—you’re about to be my boss, kind of, and—you’re a professor at my school and–”

“Immaterial to the task at hand,” he murmured, lowering his grasp to knead at the soft globes of her bottom. His lips grazed the shell of her ear, and she squirmed.

But she protested still.

_How_?

How could it be that the closer they became, the more she could resist, while he only became more lost? A slave to his instinct? To the warm, sweet fragrance and tingling pink energy glowing from her skin, the glazed-over sparkle in her wide blue eyes?

“Hush,” he said, “and let me have you.”

Relief and self-vindication flooded through him when this sweet nothing seemed to be all the encouragement she needed to abandon what remained of her reservations. His aim at present: to keep the little sounds of pleasure coming at regular intervals from his lover’s lips going, and to release her deepening fragrance, so that it filled his head and the room, damp and dark and delicious.

Her center, when he reached it, felt as heated and slick as her scent promised, and a heady feeling of power overtook him at her readiness without him having even touched her properly yet. But he did not get to enjoy this discovery.

His phone rang. And while he could ignore it, he knew that she would key in to the sound soon enough, and the moment would be over regardless. He wrenched his body from hers and answered the phone with a roar, immediately feeling his anger tighten and focus when he recognized the voice on the line.

Kagura.

Had he not made himself quite _perfectly_ clear?

Higurashi covered herself, recovering the bits and pieces of her discarded outfit and donning them once more. She intended to leave. As though in confirmation, she walked up to him tentatively and touched his bicep, pointing to the door.

Sesshoumaru vacillated for the merest moment. On the one hand, his anger burned away the desire that consumed him before, and he _knew_ that continuing what they had begun would be compounding one mistake on top of another. On the other hand, the one still slick with the evidence of her desire, even though his baser needs and desires no longer compelled him, even though this could amount to no more than courting trouble, he—

He turned from the phone, covering the microphone with his palm. “Don’t run away,” he repeated his earlier command, voice soft.

But she left regardless, again, somehow, showing a superiority of will that riddled him with self-disgust. As she gained the door, he finally turned his attention to the voice prattling ceaselessly on the other end of the line. “Your death will be your penance, Kagura.”

He heard Kagura’s intake of breath, and taking this as a sign that she received his message, hung up. He did not move. Paralyzed in the face of Kagome’s heady scent, still flavoring the air everywhere around him, still concentrated on his fingertips, he _could_ not move.

When at last he did, he followed his first impulse to make his way to the couch once more. The combined scent of their excitement lingered at its strongest here, where they came so close to coupling. A fleeting impulse to take himself in hand and relieve his frustration offended his higher faculties so sharply that he growled into the empty room.

No—he had another reason for coming back to the scene of their crime, and it would be tucked in there, still, between the couch cushions. The Shikon no Tama. She would come looking for it. He reached down, plucking it blindly from its hiding spot, and placed it into a drawer in his desk, eyes averted the entire time. She would ask if he had seen it. While he could justify a little subterfuge, somehow, he would rather remain truthful in this, at least.

-+-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I call this chapter “Kagura is a cockblock a lot”. Two more parts in this act! This one is 13ish pages, the others are 26 and 14ish respectively; you see why I broke it up.
> 
> **Poll: **The chapters are all written, but they stick to a pretty T-M rating. Now that we’re getting into the physical part of their relationship, I’ve been debating whether or not to include lemons or keep the story where it is, rating-wise. What do you think? They should be quick enough to write up and add in without delaying the posting schedule… I’m just apprehensive about writing male-pov smut.
> 
> The waka at the beginning of this chapter is an allusion to another poem. The other poem pities a visitor coming to see the writer in snowfall, when the path has been wiped out. This poem has a slightly different perspective. Anyone want to take a stab at how it relates to this act of the story?
> 
> **This story is already complete, so expect the next chapter on Sunday, September 15th!**


	3. Act II Part II

-+-

**Shikizaki : An Omikuji Variation**

Act II Part II

-+-

In my Mountain Home—

a snowfall

one wants to save

from trails of footprints.

How could one claim

to welcome

a visitor who comes today? 

-+-

In the face of her tears the following day, he appreciated his foresight.

The way her eyes glistened, the sweet noises of her distress—even in her sorrow, he found something about her to please him.

Sesshoumaru made a point to avoid her from that point on.

His appalling lack of control concerning Higurashi Kagome now abundantly clear, he decided that the only possible solution lay in distance. Distance and time. He would regain mastery of his faculties quickly enough. It pained him that he might never be able to puzzle her out. His curiosity, a terrible beast, revolted against this knowledge. But he would have to let that go, for the sake of his own sanity.

It helped to remind himself, every so often, that she was _human_.

This mental announcement brought with it not only the feeling of revulsion associated with the species in general, but the feeling of shame on behalf of his father and half-brother.

He may have kissed Kagome, but thankfully, he never fully gave in to _that_ weakness. So many centuries later, having surpassed his _eminent _sire, he would _not_ stumble over the same pebble in the road that brought about his father’s downfall. And Inuyasha’s, for that matter, though his case might be more easily excused. He had always been weak; had always been half human.

The fact that Sesshoumaru actively needed to _remind_ himself, however, came as a surprise.

Until now, his instinct always led him to revile her kind. To look down on them. A youkai with a human, a lower life-form, so patently inferior in every way—he remembered once comparing the act of fraternizing with humans to an act of bestiality. For that’s what it amounted to in the end. But when he beheld Kagome, his first thought did not call to disdain her, not to turn her away; rather, to hold her close, to _become_ close.

This in itself puzzled.

But this puzzle he refused to solve. He accepted it as yet another question that his curiosity would have to ignore, because he could not afford to explore the implications of its possible solution.

He intended, in giving her his apartment key, to keep her away from campus, and therefore away from Naraku, while doing his work. But when he returned home that first afternoon, and her smell had soaked further into the fabric of the cushions of the couch, now as entrenched a part of his apartment as the furniture itself, he reconsidered whether this idea served his ends as well as he hoped.

He would spend the remainder of her time in his employ in his apartment in Jiyugaoka.

In point of fact, his plan for avoidance proved effective, at least for the first several days.

When one morning he realized that he forgot a rather important document at the campus apartment, he did not feel alarm. He knew that if he arrived late enough into the evening, he would not have to see her. She texted him at the end of each of her “shifts”, a quick report to update him as to her progress, and they all seemed to come at around the same time of day.

Tanaka-san corroborated this, when Sesshoumaru called. “Higurashi-sama has been leaving within 10 minutes of 5 o’clock each evening, Sesshoumaru-sama,” he explained, checking his guest logs. “Should I be marking her comings and goings more closely?”

“No, but do keep an eye on her. See that she has anything she needs.”

Problem more or less solved, he waited to leave until his arrival would put him there at about five-thirty, a good thirty minutes past her usual end-time, before departing Jiyugaoka with the confidence of one whose plans could only succeed.

When by five-ten she had not texted him, he called Tanaka. “She left as usual,” the younger youkai reported, not even having to pause to check the records.

The coast would be clear, then.

He felt suddenly ridiculous; secreting into his own living space, for fear of meeting this—and here the reminder came effortfully, once more—_human_ woman. There could be no other cause for this skulking about: it could only be fear of his own lack of self-control. This reflection set a pronounced frown onto his face, and it lingered there as he turned the car onto his street and neared his apartment.

But the frown vanished with the rising of his brows when he saw her on the sidewalk, walking past his building with a bag from the konbini in hand, the agitated swing and speed to her steps a sight entirely new to him. He pulled the car to the curb. Tanaka would park it for him.

“Higurashi,” he called on an exhale, before he could think better of it. Nothing could have prepared him for the feeling of all-consuming rage that boiled over within him when, as he breathed in, he dragged in the scent of _wolf_, close to her once more.

It suddenly didn’t matter that the upset cleared from her face, replaced by a brilliant smile as she waved and called a greeting back. Or that she approached him with a much lighter step.

_I am away for the span of days, and already she takes up with the wolf?_

Hands in his pockets, he watched her, fighting down the blind ire and attempting to see her as she stood before him. Happy to see him. If he examined closer… slowly he leaned forward, and brought his cheek to hers. The wolf’s odor lingered, but fresh and superficial. They had met in passing.

Not _taking up_, then, perhaps. But this stench did not belong on her at _all_, and the time had come for her to know it. Grip deceptively gentle, he tugged her by the wrist toward the apartment. “Come.”

In what seemed to have become a routine for them, now, they went up the elevator in quiet, and he only released her to deal with her shoes before leading her to the couch. He toppled her there, looming over her to give her at least a sense of his displeasure.

Hand back on her wrist he pulled her arm out of the way and leaned into her again, cheek to cheek. That _foul stench_. “You were with the wolf.”

“Wolf?”

“Your friend—Kouga.”

She acknowledged this as true, and he continued his examination. “He was _all over you_,” Sesshoumaru murmured, voice calm but with increasing intensity. His lips were twisting downwards, brows knotting together when he pulled back to look at her.

And she—Kagome—looked up at him, confused, as though struggling to understand his motivations. “It was just a hug,” she said, slowly. As though explaining something to a child.

Another demonstration.

The wolf _had no right._

The last thread of reason, as so often happened in her presence, snapped. He would have her, and once his curiosity had been satisfied, he would be able to let her go. Sesshoumaru pulled his phone from his rear pocket and grabbed her bag from over her shoulder, tossing the two aside carelessly. “No more interruptions,” he said.

He descended on her.

This time, true to his promise, there were no interruptions.

When the red faded from his vision, and rational thought returned, they were between his sheets, Kagome speaking her panic about protection. Perhaps he should have thought of it himself, but no matter how pretty he found her, he would not lie with a woman who smelled of disease. And as for pregnancy, her scent did not have the pungency that denoted fertility. Risk of conception would be negligible, were he a human; conception rates between humans and youkai were notoriously low. Her concerns were easily allayed, assisted with the pressing forward of his calm energy.

A thing of beauty, her skin reflecting the moonlight from outside the window, casting an ethereal glow about her. From behind half-lidded eyes, she murmured, “What _is_ it about you?”

Only when she spoke did he realize that he’d been combing his fingers through her raven locks. They stilled at the realization, but then continued, when he noted the sedative effect of the caress. The better if she slept.

But she did not sleep, though he offered her the opportunity. Instead, she got up when he did, moving about the room to dress herself. He preceded her to the living room, giving her a measure of privacy, but also with another purpose. Her purse lay where he discarded it earlier this evening.

Exactly enough time remained. Reaching between the couch cushions, he drew a silver-chained necklace with a pink bauble, a remarkable likeness to the original. One that had been hiding there for the entire duration of his absence from home. He expected she would have found it already, but she must have given up her search once the first proved fruitless, so he would spare her the trouble of looking for it herself. On silent feet, he plucked her bag from the floor, dropped the jewelry inside and placed the bag on the couch.

Kagome came out of the bedroom not seconds later. She looked lost, then determined. He studied the changing expressions on her face with rapt attention; she appeared so transparent now, that reading her no longer felt an insurmountable challenge. A novel experience, when usually he gained nothing from her except further questions and greater cause for curiosity.

“Sesshoumaru,” she started and blushed. That would be the first time she said his name outside of physical intimacy. Though he gave her permission for its use, he had not expected to hear it from her lips when not in that context. Goosebumps rose on the back of his neck. “We got a little side-tracked, but… was there a reason you had me come up?”

He said nothing. Perhaps he ought to have expected her to question the lure he dangled to get her here. She was clever enough.

_For a human_, he reminded himself.

“You were asking me about Kouga-kun. Was there something we needed to talk about?” she paused, and he projected _calm_, hoping she might drop the subject entirely. “And why do you keep calling him a wolf?” she added, a playful smile crinkling her eyes.

Well. He must answer, he supposed. Best to do this as honestly as possible. “He is not unknown to me,” he started, the concession paining him as he leaned into the cushions and steepled his fingers under his chin. “He and my half-brother had quite an explosive dynamic, in another life.”

In another _lifetime_, more like. At her nod, he continued, and with some relish, because he had been looking forward to warning her off the prince for some time. “Your friend is much like a wolf in many respects,” he gestured vaguely. Kouga’s stench rising to the forefront of his memory; he huffed through his nose, attempting to clear it out. “He has you pegged for a sheep and has singled you out from the herd.” A physical touch would help to reassure her, so he gently grasped her wrist, admiring her body’s response to his as gooseflesh erupted on her skin. “I would rather you not learn of his true nature.”

“So, you’re worried about me.” She pulled free from his grasp and crossed her arms over her chest. “I have known Kouga for a _long_ time.” This statement nearly made him laugh, but her perfectly serious countenance deterred him. She scrunched her brows. “And I’m not a sheep. I can take care of myself.”

He acknowledged this, though in truth he disagreed. Kouga could take whatever he wanted from her, should ever he decide to take it by force.

“So, you saw us talking on the sidewalk while driving home, and stopped me to warn me—” his eyebrows skyrocketed upward in surprise. He had not. “… What?” she hesitated. “And somehow that turned into sex? No really, what?”

Ah. Effectively, the confirmation to his suspicion, at last. He studied her so intently that her eyes appeared the bluer, her hair the wilder, skin the fairer for it. “You really have no idea,” he marveled, and a small smile crept onto his lips. Somehow, this woman was not only _not _a Miko, trained or otherwise, but had no idea of _his identity_ at all. He shook his head to clear his thoughts, and then, with a squeeze of her knee, finding her unbearably sweet, leaned forward to touch his lips gently to hers.

So many new questions raised. So many delicious possibilities to ponder over. But not now. Now, she should go. When they moved apart, he stood, and pulled her up beside him. “Go home, Higurashi. It’s late, and I expect you on time tomorrow.”

She blinked up at him, coming out of a daze. “We need to talk about the sex,” she said, voice small but insistent.

“But not tonight,” he agreed, fully intending that ‘not tonight’ would turn out to be ‘not ever’. Though now exponentially more interesting to him since confirmed his suspicions about her not two minutes ago, he knew that they could not—not ever—repeat their actions of this evening.

This fact received a strong reinforcement when, the next day, he spotted the little Miko through a café window, seated at one of the tables, closing her eyes as the wolf leaned in to kiss her.

The idea of any further contact with her beyond what his work required became immediately untenable. She made him for a fool—humiliated him by revealing his weakness, and then added insult to injury by turning around and _kissing the wolf._

To rid himself of any further obligation to her, such that he might erase her place in his life, he would have to complete the task he set before himself when he took her necklace. This he must do quickly. That very night, he departed for Bokusenou’s woods. An easy voyage by youki cloud, much more expedient than by car.

He arrived not long past midnight. Ordinarily he would not attempt to make a visit so late into the evening. Bokusenou, a tree demon after all, tended to keep the hours one might expect of a tree. But Sesshoumaru yielded to his impatience to see this through, to _finally_ be done with this, so that he might return the precious stone to its owner and then sever all connection to her.

If he could regain his peace of mind, he would without hesitation sacrifice Bokusenou’s, this one evening.

Bokusenou’s eyes creaked open like a door on a rusted hinge; laboriously and loudly. The look of intense displeasure on his gnarled wooden face set the wrinkles in deeper than Sesshoumaru had ever seen them. “Sesshoumaru,” the tree ground out, “sun-up is not for another several hours. You can come back then.”

But Sesshoumaru had no intention of putting this off any longer. Without preamble he pulled the Shikon no Tama from the inside of his sleeve and held it aloft. Bokusenou’s eyes widened, then narrowed in a squint. If he only could, Sesshoumaru felt certain the tree demon would motion for him to bring the jewel closer for his inspection. This time, Sesshoumaru did follow the wordless command.

“Oh-ho,” the tree’s sole response when he finished peering at the stone.

“It is quite inert now,” Sesshoumaru observed, studying the pink bauble. “When around the neck of its owner, however, her reiki seemed to bring back some of its shine.”

“But the effects were not lasting,” Bokusenou concluded.

“The spider-hanyou is ever covetous of it, regardless.” He sighed. “Have you heard any indications of a general renewed interest in the jewel?”

Bokusenou considered. “None,” he announced eventually. “Nor have I heard of any interest in its bearer. Naraku appears singular in his continued obsession with it.”

“Whatever his aims are, they are unlikely to succeed.”

“Yes…” The wooden lips tightened. “Whichever Miko has been tasked with carrying this burden is not powerful enough to purify it.”

“I believe…” this concession cost him, but it would do him no favors to withhold this information. “I believe that she has not yet come into her full strength. A month ago, no point existed wherein the stone could be called anything other than inert. This has changed in the last few weeks.”

Bokusenou hummed, processing this information. “How unlikely in this day and age. Her training must be superior.”

Sesshoumaru’s lips twitched upward. “She has no training. She is not even aware of the reality of reiki, let alone youkai.”

“A curiosity,” Bokusenou hummed. “How troubling for you.”

Sesshoumaru let this pass unanswered.

“It is unlikely, however powerful she may turn out to be, that the purification of the Shikon no Tama will be within the realm of her abilities. We have not seen a Miko with the requisite skill and strength in… centuries, now.”

“Hn.” Sesshoumaru accepted this conclusion. He inclined his head in thanks, and tucked the jewel back into his sleeve.

When he turned his back to leave, Bokusenou’s voice followed him out of the clearing and into the wood. “Do not delude yourself that I will forgive this impertinence so easily, Sesshoumaru.”

He knew; his penance would be heavy the next time he visited.

Sesshoumaru instructed Myouga to sneak into Kagome’s room and replace the costume jewelry that he had tucked into her purse with the original Shikon no Tama that very night as she slept. With this, he considered his duties to her fulfilled, and he could forget this most disturbing interest in her. The further he stayed from her, after all, the easier it became. As with all things, time provided the cure.

-+-

Myouga informed him when word reached the faculty of her injury over the end of the summer break. He also informed him when Kagome ended up back in the hospital, victim to a stabbing. Despite Myouga’s encouragement, he held firm.

Despite his own impulse to seek her out, assess her well-being for himself, he held firm.

Time, he reminded himself. Time would provide the cure.

-+-

Success would have been a certainty, were it not for the text she sent him, and all that followed. One message assured his failure: a polite request for the recommendation letter he owed her.

On impulse, he responded with his office hours.

As soon as the message sent, he acknowledged his mistake. Not an impulsive man as a general rule, he could not puzzle out what possessed him to invite her into his space once again. But he knew to expect her, at least. She would not surprise him. He would keep himself in check. 

He felt her arrival, heard her slow steps down the hallway, how she stopped before it, hesitating. She knocked, he called for her to come in.

The door opened, and the faint traces of her scent became stronger. Bathed in the warm light of the setting sun, Kagome’s blue eyes looked like the sea reflecting its rays. She smelled as clean and warm as the picture her eyes painted, though her fingers reached up to wrap around her pendant in a familiar anxious gesture.

Unthinking, he pressed _calm_ toward her.

Her blue eyes seemed to lose focus, becoming hazy. A little frown twisted her lips down, and the snap of her reiki, accompanied by the stinging scent of ozone filled the room. She had pushed the reaching youki away from her.

_Consciously_.

His chair scraped backwards as he shot to his feet, startling her out of whatever trance held her focus.

“Aotsuki-sensei,” she murmured, greeting him at last.

He’d never paid much attention to it before, but Higurashi Kagome’s voice vibrated pleasantly in his ears. Light and feminine, it contrasted with those of the young human women nowadays who were wont to raise their pitch to gratingly high frequencies when speaking.

But the use of his assumed last name grated at him regardless. He pushed down the feeling, buried it deep. He took a deep sniff of the air, his chest full to bursting when he could not smell the wolf on her. “Higurashi,” he returned. The standoff persisted.

Surely, her hesitation came from weighing something in her own mind, but he could spare her thoughts no attention. All the power of his superior mind focused on the fact that she _knew_. She knew, and she stood before him, and she smelled of herself only—and suddenly he needed to be outside of this little office, where her fragrance colored every breath he took.

He reached for his bag. “I have erred in my choice of venue.” He pulled the strap over his head and accommodated it on his shoulder. “Come,” he commanded, and preceded her out the door, wresting her backpack from her as he passed. Her gait, as she walked down the corridor earlier, differed from the smooth one he’d grown used to hearing. The wound must still be paining her.

The walk took nearly twice as long with their modified speed, but he remained silent throughout, ignoring her calling of his name the one time she tried.

He knew what she would ask: where they were going, and why. Likely she knew the answer to the first question, for his feet led him back to the apartment almost without thinking. But what could he say that could justify his choice of venue?

All that mattered was that _she knew_.

Once inside his apartment, she padded barefoot after him into the living room. “Myouga-sensei told me you wrote me a letter?” she asked, and he admired her restraint.

Admired and resented it. Because somehow, once more, now that he stood in her presence, he found restraint, so carefully cultivated, slipping from his fingers. “Yes, of course,” he huffed. He stared at her, taking in her posture, the steady glow of the pink bauble around her neck. “You _know_. This is a more appropriate location for the, doubtless complex, discussion that will follow.”

Her face fell. Had she been expecting more? Perhaps she barely clung to control as well; this comforted him. “What do you have to say?” she managed eventually.

His eyebrow tweaked upward. He approached her, a predator stalking his prey, with slow, carefully measured movements, before settling beside her on the couch, arm over the back of it, torso turned to face her. “I thought perhaps you might be the one with questions.”

“Of course I have _questions_,” she snipped, turning her face away from him and looking in the general direction of the front door. “But you’re the one who brought me here.”

“I did,” he allowed, at length. She made her agitation clear. He reached for her with a tendril of youki, imbuing it with calm.

“_Stop_ that,” she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest, resolutely avoiding his gaze.

A command which surprised and vexed him. “No.” Perhaps she might be more compliant if—

He leaned in and planted a lingering kiss on her lips. Her hand went to his chest to push him away, but when he placed his hand over hers, pressing her fingers into him, she stilled, the fight leaving her. His lips retreated but he kept his face close.

“What are you _doing_?” she whimpered, confusion evident in her quizzing brow. “You ghosted me for a month and now you’re kissing me like nothing happened? What are you _doing_?”

A worthy question, worthy of an answer. But what answer could he possibly give? He pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead in apology and pulled away, leaning back on the couch.

Honest, though painful to her, would be the best course. “I’m not certain,” he sighed, eyes closing.

“What?”

“You have been a puzzle to me, Higurashi,” he said, covering his eyes with his forearm, as though blocking his view of her would help clear his thoughts. “Since the moment I met you.”

“I fail to see—” she started, full of pique, but lost steam immediately. “Why don’t you tell me?” she offered instead.

So he explained.

Myouga’s job offer had been extended with the aim of facilitating the crossing of their paths. And when they had… “You entered the library that day with your reiki like a beacon.” He turned his head, peeking out from under his lashes at her. “It burned. Perhaps you felt it? I attempted to calm you.”

She looked thoughtful. “I remember,” she whispered. Perhaps she had not been aware of his actions then, but could contextualize it now, with her new knowledge.

“I do not encounter Miko often,” he said. “But none of them have ever reacted to my youki the way that you have.” His focus drifted to her eyes, her mouth, watching for any tell regarding the course of her thoughts. “It seems to fascinate you,” he said, reaching for her with calm once more, “rather than disgust you.”

Kagome blushed fiercely. Her scent grew stronger, deeper. Distracting.

“It was unthinkable that you did not know about us,” he added, “but it was obvious you did _not_.” He could stop here, and spare them both this humiliation. But his mouth continued moving, as though it desired the unburdening, even if his rational mind reviled the prospect. “I became curious.”

He could allow himself no more than this admission. He shut his eyes again, shut her out. Refocused. “Naraku’s interest in you became apparent; or perhaps in the Shikon no Tama.”

“Why did you take it?” she broke in.

“I did not _take _it, precisely,” he ground out. She would not make him a liar. “But rather, did not find it when you misplaced it.”

“You said you hadn’t seen it,” she argued.

“I did not lie,” he growled. “I knew it was there but did not seek it until after you left that day.”

“What _for_?”

“To take it to an old friend, and ask his opinion.”

“Who? Opinion about what?”

He peeked out at her briefly, irritation tugging his lips downward. “A family friend from before my sire’s time. A tree demon, in the West.”

Her eyes widened. “Tree demon? Bokusenou?”

How unexpected. “The same.” He peered at her. Where had she learned his name? “To ask if the Jewel might be revived—if its presence would endanger its wearer.”

She considered this new information. “You should have just said something.”

He snorted. After a beat, he resumed his tale. “Kagura followed, with her staunch insistence that I not involve myself with you. As though that whelp has any right to order about her betters,” this aside spat, bitterly, and half under his breath. “And then of course, your wolf.” Again, he turned to her, studying her, watching for her tells.

She fulfilled his silent demand, though her voice came out hesitatingly. “I dated him a little, in high-school. He’s always had a flame for me, I guess. He tried to reignite it when we bumped into each other earlier this year but… he’s not _my_ wolf. And he never will be,” she offered, and hope sparkled in her eyes.

A hope he simultaneously wanted to snuff out and cherish.

“I have lived for centuries on centuries,” he said at length, still focused on her, “and with few exceptions, there has never been so concerted an effort by so large a group of individuals, to see that I not gain something which interests me.” In this case, an answer to each question that rose around her. Her blush, though, made him realize how easily that statement could be misconstrued. “Perhaps it was borne from contrariness on my part,” he sighed, “but I became infatuated with you, for a time.”

She stilled, a statue carved in marble, expression blank.

“But then I saw the wolf with you, smelled him around you near every time we met. Saw him laying his claim on you in the café. I expected distancing myself from you would end this proximity attraction.” For it could be no more than that, could it? A proximity attraction. Yes—that sounded correct. “And so I did.” The light silhouetted her form, and the sparkling blue of her irises made a feast for his eyes. “I intended to meet with you calmly today and let things lie. I had not been made aware that you _knew_ now. And despite my efforts…” He stretched his youki toward her, and she fought back, pushing it away, fingertips sparkling with pink energy.

Her submission would have far been more effective in getting him to stop.

Her fight-back, however, caused the most delicious sensation of electricity to skitter over his skin. Eyelids lowering, his voice as he spoke lowered to no more than a rumble in his chest. “… you went and did _that_.”

What followed felt like a fever dream. Falling into her came as easy as breathing. Their intimate touches rippled over his skin, their kisses tasted of ambrosia. He became as lost in her as in his reason, unable to differentiate where she began and where he ended.

Their completion came, a satisfaction unparalleled. A peace fell over them in repose, bodies still entwined, breaths still synchronized.

But Kagome seemed to return to the land of rationality before he did.

“Sesshoumaru…?” she murmured. Her arm tensed where it lay across his chest. “There is some… there are a few things that I need to ask you.”

_Now?_

“Now?” His voice echoed his thoughts.

“It’s important.”

The insistence in her voice spurred him to action, cleared the fog of pleasure from his mind. He offered coffee; she accepted.

Kagome sat at the kitchen counter and waited until he set her mug before her to pose her question. “I gather that since you returned this to me,” she said, twirling her pink pendant, “that Bokusenou concluded there was nothing dangerous about it.”

“Correct.” Not the topic he expected her to open with; rather, he had prepared himself for some sort of inquest into their relationship—which was _not_ a relationship. The subversion of his expectations pleased him.

“He would know, having seen it in its heyday?” Kagome suggested, peering up at him. “Kouga-kun told me about how things went down, more or less, with the Miko Rin’s quest to find the shards.”

His lips thinned. _Rin_. A sip of coffee settled his surprise. “That is a name I had not thought of in centuries.” For a moment he became lost in recollection. The wilderness of 500 years before; the violence of the age. Thinking of Rin naturally led to thoughts of her eventual husband. An excellent reminder of all the reasons why he should return to his original plan of avoiding Higurashi Kagome like the disease she turned out to be.

Luckily, Kagome spoke again before he could get mired down in that contemptuous tangent. “Can you tell me about it?” she set her mug on the counter and laced her fingers around it.

What of interest could he tell?

When Rin came to him, she had the arrogance and self-righteousness of the average Miko, despite her paltry skills. But she possessed in abundance a certain charisma, and a caring heart. A poultice for the wounds on Inuyasha’s. “She came to me seeking audience with Bokusenou.” On her own, she could not fulfill her quest. She lacked the power, the focus.

He drummed his fingers on the countertop, recalling the confrontation with his half-brother, who stormed into Sesshoumaru’s territory demanding the favor of an introduction to the great Bokusenou, and offering nothing, not even politeness or cordiality, in return. An abbreviated version of this would suffice, and he wasted no time in its telling. “I had no further dealings with them until their conflict with Naraku became a significant enough nuisance to destabilize the region.”

Silence stretched between them. Kagome’s expression turned somber, thoughtful, as she sipped her steaming brew. “Why did Naraku want the Jewel back then? He must have seen that it was no longer… alive?”

“That half-breed_ cur _was blinded by his aspirations and immune to logic,” he spat.

“Aspirations?”

“What any half-breed would want. To become fully youkai.” Again, his voice dripped in disgust. Inuyasha coveted the Jewel for the same reason. Neither hanyou would find success in their pursuit of artificially acquired power, though the very idea that one who shared his blood would crave it, whether successful in attaining it or not, filled him with revulsion.

“What happened after Rin completed the Jewel?”

“Little.” And wasn’t that the punchline of the story? Their expectations for Rin had been so high, but ultimately, she did not succeed in purifying the stone. Inuyasha never got his wish. “Though her spiritual powers were indeed much stronger than those of her contemporaries, and they _were_ able to put some polish on the Shikon shards during the quest, they were insufficient to do much for the Jewel in its entirety. Once completed, it resumed its inert state, much to In—” he stopped. “—to general disappointment.”

Kagome’s eyes narrowed, perceptive as always. She must have noted the slip-up when his mouth began to form the name of his late half-blood half-kin. It would stand to reason that Kouga would mention Inuyasha; he must view Sesshoumaru as a rival, and shaming him through the association would not be below the wolf.

“Did _he_ have a personal investment in it?” Kagome asked, ignoring his frown at the reference to the unnamed.

“Legend _did_ say the Shikon no Tama would grant a wish,” his only concession aloud. To his relief, she changed the subject.

“What happened after?”

He shrugged. “Rin was his pet project, not mine. I saw no need to pursue the acquaintance.”

Kagome sat back in her chair. “So Bokusenou knew the Jewel from back then—or from even before?” he inclined his head and Kagome nodded in response. “And when he saw it this time, what exactly did he have to say?”

Sesshoumaru leaned across the counter, reaching out. He touched his fingertip to the glossy surface of the jewel around her neck, contemplating the little bauble. Once so powerful, now a mere trinket. A footnote in the history of their kind. He glanced up at her, and she blinked, cheeks taking a pink tint. “That he had not heard of any resurrected rumors about it.” He pulled back, picked up his mug.

“What else?”

“That your reiki is not sufficient to breathe life back into the Jewel,” he murmured. “So long as you remain as you are, there is no danger to you.”

But a looming danger did exist, and that they both knew it hung suspended in the air between them. From Kagura, and Naraku. Yes—he had heard about Kagura’s role in Kagome’s injury. And he therefore saw to it that steps were taken to prevent any further harassment. “No additional danger,” he amended.

Kagome nodded. “I’m not convinced the Shikon no Tama is all he wants,” she admitted, voice strained. “I was under the impression that youkai don’t get into casual affairs with humans.”

_Ah. Here it is. _The expected inquest.

“As a rule, we do not,” he said. “The wolf is a rare exception. And Naraku—an aberration.”

“And this?” she gestured between them.

He straightened, settling a hand on the granite, fingers relaxed. He did not desire to injure her any further. It pained him, but it must be done. “I do not and have never involved myself with humans, in _any_ way, outside of my work.”

For the space of a moment she stiffened, then her face went lax, portraying unconcern. It remained obvious to him that his words had hit their mark. He found himself surprised, then, that she would seek to clarify his meaning, and injure herself further in the process, when she said, “so, this…”

“Is as I said—a proximity infatuation, borne of curiosity and willfulness.” He put his hand over the wrist of her right hand, tightened in a death-grip on the handle of her coffee mug, in a conciliatory gesture. Acknowledging his error, though, could not be sufficient. “In giving in to my curiosity I am aware I may have caused you pain. Even this evening—I find I am unable to resist the temptation when you are near. But the fact remains I _should_ have resisted.” He straightened, distancing himself. On a sigh, “I owe you an apology for that.”

She looked full of expectation, though what else she could be expecting stood beyond his skills of divination. “Okay,” she said at length. “Where do we go from here, then? You’re not going to ghost on me?”

“I am fond of your company, in my way,” he replied, the effort of this admission paining him nearly as much as the conversation itself. “However, in the interest of not repeating past mistakes, perhaps we should limit our interactions to the academic.” He paused. It would be best if he not see her in person again, until he could figure out the secret to remaining his own master in her presence. “And to the digital.”

The lines about her mouth tensed. Her body withdrew a little further from his. “I’ll text you, then.” She gave him a brittle smile.

“Please do,” he replied, politely. He peered over the lip of her mug, and seeing it mostly empty, offered, “More coffee?”

A quick glance at her watch. “No, thank you,” Kagome said, sliding off the stool. “It’s already quite late. I should get going.”

“Of course.”

In her movements, a heaviness manifested, as she gathered her things to leave. The tension built in the air between them. Could she feel his relief?

Once her shoes were back on, she turned to wish him goodnight, her smile wobbly, as though seconds from bursting into tears. He begged silently that she would hold out until the door closed behind her.

Some sort of farewell must be said. Her “good night” lacked the finality this moment needed.

But when he parted his lips to speak, “be safe” were the words that escaped instead.

Even in this, he must be confronted with his weakness.

-+-

His resolve strengthened.

And he stayed away.

-+-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, how are we doing so far? If you voted for the addition of lemons, I’ll be adding them in. None in this chapter, though they did get it on off-screen; the sex here hasn’t meant anything much to him. When it becomes important, it’ll be a part of the story.
> 
> The waka at the beginning of this chapter is an allusion to another poem. The other poem pities a visitor coming to see the writer in snowfall, when the path has been wiped out. This poem has a slightly different perspective. Anyone want to take a stab at how it relates to this act?
> 
> **This story is already complete, so expect the next chapter on Sunday, September 22nd! **


	4. Act II Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the final part of Act II! Sorry it's two days late. I had a friend from out of town visiting and was so distracted by her presence that I totally forgot! Next one will be on time, PROMISE.

-+-

**Shikizaki : An Omikuji Variation**

Act II Part III

-+-

In my Mountain Home—

a snowfall

one wants to save

from trails of footprints.

How could one claim

to welcome

a visitor who comes today? 

-+-

This did not go unnoticed, however. Myouga approached him in his office one day, settling down on top of Sesshoumaru’s stapler. Sesshoumaru considered swatting him, ending his life at long last—his final retribution—but the flea moved quickly and weighed barely more than dust. He’d be out of the way before Sesshoumaru’s hand could crush him.

“Higurashi-kun hasn’t been coming by much recently, has she?”

This observation fell flat. It merited no response, so he gave none. They _both_ knew she hadn’t come once in the last few weeks. Sesshoumaru knew the cause of this; Myouga did not, and had no need to. Sesshoumaru owed explanations to no one.

“I’d started to think you found something in each other,” Myouga added, tone hopeful. Attempting to earn a confidence.

Usually Sesshoumaru would deny him. But something about the flea’s words rang true, and he found the prospect of unburdening himself increasingly tantalizing. “Must I remind you that she is a human?”

“Not _me_, Sesshoumaru-sama.” The flea stroked his whiskers, peering up at the infinitely larger daiyoukai seated before him. “Is that something you have to remind _yourself_?”

Sesshoumaru sighed, leaning back in his chair. His eyes flitted closed. “Nearly constantly.” The degree of misery in his own voice surprised him when he heard it.

Myouga hummed, but otherwise remained silent, interest clearly written on his face, but with enough concern to provide a balance.

“I have resolved to maintain a certain distance between us,” Sesshoumaru volunteered at length, still eying the aging ceiling tiles above him. “It is best.” The flea hummed in acknowledgment once more. Sesshoumaru, though, would say nothing else on the subject.

Eventually, Myouga excused himself from the office, accepting Sesshoumaru’s silence. The flea, despite his history of pranking, had received the message. Sesshoumaru had laid down a line; one that he would not cross. Myouga would understand this and cease interfering between them, cease attempting to put Kagome in his path. If not, he could not escape paying a penance.

Sesshoumaru harbored no doubts that Myouga knew it would mean his life.

-+-

He only realized how much time passed since their last confrontation when he saw that winter had come again, frigid air and bitter breezes, light dustings of snow, and the eternally running noses of the humans that mobbed the campus every day, all around him.

His success in forgetting her, compared to his previous stumbling attempts, impressed.

They saw each other on campus, of course. As before, whenever they crossed paths, their eyes would meet. As before, a skittering trail of electricity would leap down his spine at the sight of her, at her scent on the wind, at the sound of her voice echoing in the hallways.

But aside from noting these undesirable sensations, he did not react.

Until.

_Always_ ‘until’!

In the company of two of her human friends, Kagome walked past his office and into Myouga’s. Not an unusual occurrence of itself, with the exception of the escort. Though, upon reflection, it had become a rare thing indeed for Kagome to enter the faculty building without _someone _else in tow. The escorts remained outside the office, however, loitering quietly.

Eavesdropping, he suspected. Or looking at their phones.

The cause of his loss of control, of his undoing the work of weeks of suppressing his desire to reach for her, lay in the content of the conversation that followed within the confines of the department head’s study.

Through the wall, Sesshoumaru could hear with perfect clarity as Kagome, almost without preamble, outlined to Myouga each and every one of Naraku’s transgressions.

The harassment.

Her voice all atremble, she began listing her complaints. “It started with academic harassment,” she said. “Making implications about my friendship with Chiaki-sensei, you know. Saying he took integrity very seriously, implying that I didn’t. But then—”

The physical assaults, via Kagura.

“She sent me to the hospital twice, Myouga-sensei. All on orders from Naraku… Naraku-sensei. And he—he gloated over her death, implied that he had been the cause, and did it _on my _behalf, and—”

The threats and slander.

The _repeated_ attempts to infiltrate her dreams.

“The most horrible nightmares, and he’s at the center of every one—”

Coercion.

Attempts to lure her into compromising positions.

Sesshoumaru found he could recall having heard of only the first three complaints.

The rest transpired without his notice, or without his hearing, and all because of the estrangement between himself and her.

A brilliant, burning ire rose within him.

That Naraku should _dare_—

He burst through the door of his office, startling the young couple that had their ears pressed against Myouga’s office door, and barreled past them, anger piloting his body. An anger which the cool detachment in Kagome’s expression did nothing to quell. She looked haggard, drawn. Bags under her eyes from too little sleep, frame frail and waifish. Likely off her food.

Naraku had done this to her.

Turned a vibrant woman into a shadow of her former self.

“Sesshoumaru-sama,” Myouga’s voice broke him from his concentrated inspection of the young woman standing before the desk. Her eyes shot to the flea, as though unable to bear staring down Sesshoumaru any longer. “I thought you meant to stay away,” Myouga continued, suggestion in his tone.

“Quiet,” Sesshoumaru snapped in response.

But Myouga did not seem inclined to obey the command. “You should know the truth by now, Sesshoumaru-sama.”

What _truth_? The truth that he may as well concede his loss to her—that he could not help himself but be drawn to her?

“Perhaps I should allow you two a moment to talk. _Just_ talk, if you please,” the flea continued.

A vicious growl ripped from Sesshoumaru’s chest at this impertinence, but the elderly youkai ignored it, standing to walk around the desk and circle to Kagome’s side. He touched her arm lightly.

_She is not his to touch._

Sesshoumaru’s growls grew louder.

“I leave you in good hands, my dear.” With one more quick, pointed look at Sesshoumaru, he ambled to the door to let himself out, leaving two very agitated individuals in the room.

Kagome looked everywhere but at him. For his part, he did not attempt to reign in the wrath he knew could be read clearly through his bared teeth. She should know of his anger, and that it burned on her behalf.

“How much did you hear?” she asked eventually, finally accepting that he had no intention of either moving or speaking first.

_Everything_.

“Enough,” he replied.

“Okay,” she breathed, eyes trailing up his body hesitantly, to meet his gaze. “So why are you here?”

He clenched his jaw as he swiveled away, stalking to the window behind the desk and stopping there, back toward her. He remained silent and strained, back rigid, fists clenched. _Why am I here?_

Why _was _he here?

Instinct had driven him here. Had pulled the reins from his rational mind and brought him, in a frothing rage, into her presence. But to what end? He intentionally loosened some of the tension from his jaw, his shoulders. “I do not know,” his replied belatedly, both unsure and resentful at once.

“Okay,” she repeated, frown deepening, frustration evident. “Good talk. I’m leaving.” Her hair whipped around her as she pivoted to the exit, but she made it only one step before he reached her, grabbing her forearm to halt her progress. Around his fingers, her energy crackled, snapping against his skin.

Her own rage smoldered in her stormy blue eyes, turning her lips downward and raising her voice. “Let me go.”

He obeyed, because he must, though he moved to instead block her physically from escaping through the door. She may be unsatisfied with its progression, but he would not allow her to flee this conversation.

“You don’t get to _do_ this,” she bit out. “You don’t get to just come and go as you please, fuck me and dump me, and act like there’s a place for you whenever you feel offended enough to come back.”

The crassness of her language, so unlike her, jolted him out of his temper for a second, before the full meaning of her words descended over him. He breathed her scent, body still as a statue, and then his lips drew back as he exposed his teeth once more. A low, rumbling growl filled the room, more sinister than before. An unjustifiable presumption on her part. “You do not tell me my place, _human_.”

Kagome reeled as though struck. “Wow.” She bit her lip, though it quivered regardless. Her eyes became glassy with unshed tears. “You must really hate me.”

Another unutterably ridiculous assertion.

Was she _trying_ to rile him?

More appallingly, how could she be so successful at it, with so little effort?

He should be focusing instead on her utter lack of understanding. He slammed his fist on the side of one of the bookcases that flanked the door. “You think you know it all,” he hissed. “You know _nothing_.”

He knew her; she did not know _him_. She grew acquainted with a façade, a prettily-painted front of a human professor who acted kindly to the students in his department, offering them coffee and academic advice, helping them out of tricky situations with their sleazy supervisors. She did not know _him_; Sesshoumaru, daiyoukai. Sesshoumaru, unrivaled in strength, the killing perfection. She knew _nothing_.

She shook her head. “Let me through, Sesshoumaru.”

He didn’t budge.

Her hands clenched at her sides, her shoulders squared to face him. Now she too shook with barely restrained rage, and a pink glow surrounded her with a clarity of intention that he had never seen in her before.

Stronger, more controlled than ever.

The look in her eye turned murderous. He felt within him a small spark of pride in her, for tapping into a newly burgeoning power. For becoming _more_, _better._ But nothing he could say now would penetrate the wall of wrath between them.

He’d played this incorrectly.

He had lost this battle.

Unsure of how to attempt to repair the rift between them, he did the only thing he could think to do to appease her.

He stepped aside.

She shuffled around him through the doorway, brushing against his arm as she passed—the sound of sizzling and the smell of burnt flesh flooding his olfactory receptors and blocking out the natural freshness of her scent.

He saw the tears, though, as they flooded her eyes.

Myouga returned to the office to find Sesshoumaru with his head in his hands, seated at the desk. Myouga, demonstrating unusual delicacy, had the courtesy to say nothing and ask nothing about what occurred in his absence. Instead, he proceeded to next steps.

“This will have to go into arbitration,” he intoned.

“Arbitration,” Sesshoumaru parroted. “I should destroy that mongrel hanyou now, so numerous have his slights been against our kind. He stands no chance of success, regardless of whether the rules of arbitration are in place.” Head still in his hands, he fixed his gaze on a little knot in the wood grain.

“As the outcome is essentially guaranteed, then best to wait for the arbitration. Don’t forget, there are many that would jump at the chance to challenge you for breaking a well-established protocol.”

Sesshoumaru raised his eyes then to stare down the insolent flea. “And their challenges would be equally as likely to succeed as Naraku’s.”

“That is arrogance—you are not the only daiyoukai still living, Sesshoumaru-sama.”

No more. He would brook no more misbehavior today, least of all from _Myouga_. He got to his feet and marched from the room.

When his temper cooled, he conceded that perhaps the flea had a point. He would follow his advice and wait, at least, though there he faced no real danger if he didn’t. An arbitration would come with its own set of issues, anyway. Kagome would doubtless not expect or appreciate that Sesshoumaru would be the one to champion her cause.

In reality, no _need_ existed for them to arbiter this situation on her behalf. Nobody would care that Naraku harassed this Miko student or tried to take an inert Shikon no Tama from her. But the arbitration provided Sesshoumaru with a convenient excuse, a reason to finally address the thorn in the side of the youkai community.

That Kagome’s suffering more than adequately justified Naraku’s end to Sesshoumaru remained beside the matter.

So he would wait. Patience, a virtue which he wielded like a sword, would serve him well yet again. Of this he was certain.

The days passed.

Midafternoon the Saturday before their settled appointment with the spider hanyou, Sesshoumaru’s phone began to ring. It disturbed his meditation; he ignored it and let the call connect to voicemail. A few seconds later, it rang again.

One eye popped open and peered at the display. The sight of Myouga’s name made goosebumps rise on the back of Sesshoumaru’s neck. Myouga had a habit of insisting, but something—

He answered on the next ring.

“Sesshoumaru-sama. I have heard from Higurashi-kun’s relations that she has gone to scout out the meeting place.” This, of course, merited no response. “I should also mention that Naraku absented from his class yesterday and has been unreachable since.”

The implication of Myouga’s information—that Naraku would lie in wait, expecting that Kagome would want to prepare in advance—made something cold wrap around his heart. This did not bode well.

“Reroute the family toward the appointed place. I will meet them there.”

He hung up the phone, tucked it into his pocket, and made his way out. A quick elevator ride to the roof of the building later found him already on his way. Youki swirled around him as he rearranged himself into a ball of energy, reflective enough to appear as no more than a glimmering light in the afternoon sun.

His chest grew tight as he catapulted through the air toward his destination. It could not possibly be fear—perhaps dread?—that made him feel every beat of his heart as though it were trying to rip its way up into his throat. Time passed slower than ever before. The trip to the meeting site became eternal, self-flagellating thoughts alternating with plans for the hanyou’s demise.

He saw the rock face that marked the entrance to the selected cavern and touched down immediately before it. The acrid stench of Kagome’s fear and the smothering odor of Naraku’s youki burned his nose, even from outside the barrier.

As he stepped through the illusory stone wall, his ire dissipated and his heart rate slowed. A placid, unperturbable calm descended over him. Now here, he could affect a resolution to the problem.

No matter how much the sight before him disgusted him, enraged him, he could clearly see the hanyou bastard’s imminent end, and this pleased him greatly. Youki wrapped tightly in around himself, he stepped silent toward the hanyou, who sat writhing, legs locked around the helpless Miko restrained below him.

“If I must destroy you before I have you, I will,” Naraku’s harsh voice threatened as he panted into her face, “as long as you’re warm, the rest doesn’t matter.”

Kagome thrashed her head from side to side, bucking her body desperately, screwing her eyes closed. The fight would not leave her.

A warmth rushed through Sesshoumaru at the sight of her resistance. But he set it aside; there would be time for that later.

As cruelly as his claw-tipped fingers could, they dove into the black mass of Naraku’s hair and wrenched his head and body away from the young woman in his clutches. Naraku’s neck strained; his grip weakened on his captive.

Sesshoumaru released a flood of youki, smothering the purple miasma that clouded the pair on the ground. Kagome took a deep, shuddering breath, chest wall heaving. She looked near to drowning. He would see that suffering on Naraku’s face instead.

“That’s _enough,_” Sesshoumaru commanded the hanyou. Kagome’s eyes snapped to him and a look of such heartfelt and surprised relief, watery smile and spilling tears and all, transformed her features into a picture of beauty.

Hand still gripping Naraku by his hair, Sesshoumaru removed the cur bodily from her, casting him aside. He flew through the air like a ragdoll, body colliding with the cave wall and crumbling to a heap at the bottom.

Kagome scrambled to her feet immediately, eyes searching Sesshoumaru’s face. He thought for a moment that she might reach out to him. It occurred to him then that she _couldn’t_. She had never seen him like this before, in all of his youkai glory, his human trappings discarded completely.

She looked at him as though beholding a stranger. Indeed—she would never have seen him as clearly, before this.

He studied her in return, assessing her condition. No coat. Her shirt ripped in places; her palms shredded. Blood, fragrant and sweet and metallic, dripped from her palms, beaded on her lip and matted in her hair. Her cheek, swollen and bruising, where Naraku had no doubt struck her. Sesshoumaru’s nostrils flared minutely, and for a fraction of a second, he could not keep his surprise off his face.

The scent of ozone, and corresponding burnt flesh. Such a quantity of residual reiki in the air, surpassing even what he had seen in Myouga’s office. Kagome had resisted to the best of her ability. And the best of her ability impressed.

Another thought to ruminate over later.

He turned his back to her then, facing his opponent, who came to his feet at the base of the wall opposite them. Sparing Kagome one final thought, he decided he should reward her efforts. “You have done well,” he voiced, just loud enough to reach her ears. “Stay back.”

In a blink he crossed the large expanse of the cavern, facing down a harried-looking Naraku.

His flesh already knitting itself together from where Kagome’s reiki damaged him before Sesshoumaru’s arrival, he looked a little worse for the wear. But not nearly enough, yet. “_Cur_.” Sesshoumaru’s voice carried throughout the cavern, its ferocity reverberating through the walls despite how quietly he spoke.

Naraku, having regained his composure, tossed his head and barked out a laugh. “A fine insult, coming from a dog.” He crossed his arms over his chest, affecting an air of superiority. “You’re showing your true colors, Sesshoumaru. What could have brought you here except that girl?” he laughed at length this time. “Three for three. It truly runs in your family, this love of humans, doesn’t it?”

His taunts missed their target. Sesshoumaru found in this moment that he had already accepted this weakness. No one could be without failings, and Sesshoumaru knew now that this affection lay beyond hope of a cure.

One foot shifting forward, Naraku assumed more of a ready stance, though his arms and face remained relaxed. Behind him, the darkness swirled and congealed, and long black shapes tentacles projected from the shadows.

Display-making. An act leagues below him.

“I can’t fault your taste though,” Naraku continued, undeterred by Sesshoumaru’s persistent silence. He glanced over Sesshoumaru’s shoulder at Kagome, red eyes sharpening, sneer widening. His tongue darted out to wet his lips in a licentious gesture. “She’s a ripe little morsel.”

Sesshoumaru neither moved nor dignified this jeering with a response. His calm held strong, his patience infinite. He knew how this incensed Naraku, knew that remaining steadfast in his disaffectedness would frustrate Naraku into striking first.

“Granted, you _know_ her better than I do,” Naraku continued, glinting red eyes hard, shoulders tense. “Though that’s about to change.”

Naraku’s sneer became tense. Sesshoumaru had yet to act in any way, and already Naraku reached desperation. _What an easily goaded creature._ But then Naraku glanced at Kagome once more and his brow smoothed, some resolution reached. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

He pivoted, and the moment he angled his body toward Kagome, Sesshoumaru’s fingers curled, a long green whip shooting from his hand, slicing through and snapping loudly in the air before Naraku, stopping his progress.

Naraku reflexively covered his nose against the scent of the noxious gas rising from the weapon. Sesshoumaru’s hand relaxed back to his side, the poison whip still dangling from his fingertips. He would force Naraku to acknowledge his inferiority before he killed the worthless scum.

Perhaps Naraku felt corralled, or maybe he felt underestimated—Sesshoumaru made no effort to do anything but control his movement—but the levity in Naraku’s expression dissipated, and his eyebrows drew down over raging eyes.

The air crackled with energy as the two stared each other down.

Impatience flashed on Naraku’s features. “I’d say that’s enough playing around.” He gnashed his teeth together. His dark youki flooded around him, then shot out in every direction, filling the cavern in a thick fog. The ground below them began to tremble. Bits of bone and rock, vibrating with energy, propelled upwards, floating in the air.

His feet separated themselves from the ground as he too began to levitate. His eyes sparkled with violence as he looked Sesshoumaru, perfectly unmoved, before him. “Things have changed since the last time!” On that tremendous shout, Naraku lunged at his opponent, purple tendrils of energy jetting from fingertips like shimmering blades.

Naraku struck. Sesshoumaru blocked with a glowing green hand and the force of the impact exploded the shattered debris on the cavern floor, sending it flying in every direction. Naraku tried again, but Sesshoumaru parried without difficulty.

Two currents of youki filled the room, a fluorescent green and a shimmering purple, which, like the youkai that created them, danced about one another, clashing and separating, setting the stone about them trembling.

It hadn’t taken long to observe Naraku’s rhythm, refresh his memory on the hanyou’s habits in combat. Naraku proved eager to expose himself, striking repeatedly despite failing each time, with each attacking revealing his patterns and weaknesses more and more.

On his next attack, Sesshoumaru at last returned the blow, striking his prey across the face with his whip and sending him flying. Naraku crashed into the splintered bone carpeting halfway across the cavern. Only a moment passed before he sprang forward from the earth where he fell, black tentacles surrounding him, sharpened and poised to attack. Sesshoumaru refocused, his whip re-emerging to dice the tentacles as they speared toward him.

Enough of this.

He reached to his hip and drew Bakusaiga from its scabbard. He swung the blade, and a wave of green youki blasted toward his prey.

For a moment, Sesshoumaru’s vision became overwhelmed by the intensity of the light—it adjusted in time to see a purple orb break through, shattering as it cleared the field of crackling youki. Naraku emerged from within it, clutching his shoulder where his arm had severed. The putrid scent of blood and decay infiltrated Sesshoumaru’s nose as bone and muscle knit back together, arm regenerating at a rate unexpected for a hanyou of his ilk.

Kagome’s burst of reiki must have been much stronger than he originally thought, and done much greater damage than he’d originally gauged, if Naraku could repair himself at this rate. He couldn’t help the surprised ‘hn’ that left his lips.

Rather than wait for Naraku to attack first, Sesshoumaru at last jumped forward, blade at the ready. He slashed down, sword seeking to cleave Naraku in two, but the spider parried, a spike of flesh extending from his freshly-formed hand to block the blow. Bakusaiga tore through the limb, which started a rapid decay until it crumbled away from Naraku’s body. Sesshoumaru struck again and again, and Naraku, huffing now, continued to block and parry with various quickly rotting horns and spikes and tentacles that he jettisoned one after another from his flesh.

Eyes wild, Naraku struck at Sesshoumaru once more, blade-like tentacle clashing with sword.

The shockwave of force from the impact knocked Kagome to her knees behind them, a small “Eep!” ejecting from her mouth which grew louder as it echoed through the room.

As one, Sesshoumaru and Naraku recalled her presence. They swiveled to look at her, then back to each other.

Sesshoumaru prepared for another attack, and Naraku complied the once, striking wildly before releasing a screeching laughter, accompanying the blow with an explosion of searing youki. Sesshoumaru stumbled back a step, then another, before regaining his balance and composure. He’d been quick about it, too.

But when he looked up, Naraku was already crossing the cavern toward a trembling Kagome, terror shining in her eyes.

Sesshoumaru launched himself in her direction.

Naraku’s clawed hand, purple with miasma, reached for her.

Time slowed.

Kagome’s eyes squeezed shut as she straightened her arm before her, trying to ward him off. A vibrant rose-tinted light glowed at her chest.

One more step—

His fingertips curled into the ends of Naraku’s hair as the spider’s claw plunged into Kagome’s chest, rending skin, muscle, and bone; this, as a wash of pink reiki rocketed from Kagome’s fingertips in an explosion of phenomenal force.

Sesshoumaru tumbled back, Naraku’s body flying past him and crashing into the cave wall. His body slumped at the bottom, lifeless, hand and arm covered and dripping with Kagome’s blood.

Naraku groaned, but made no further move.

Heart jackhammering in his chest, disbelief keeping his jaw slack, Sesshoumaru stepped over the rubble toward Kagome, where she law wheezing, blood gurgling from her mouth. Her chest wall moved rapidly and ineffectually, her pulse growing threadier and fainter by the second.

Kagome blinked, lids lowering and raising sluggishly, battling their own weight. “Se—” she started, before her breath hitched weakly. Blood spurted from her mouth.

Nothing could force him to look away from her. To give her the honor of witnessing her last—

At his hip, Tenseiga hummed, low and resonant. His gaze redirected toward it, long enough to miss seeing her lips tremble as Kagome called for him again.

Blood flooded her mouth. Her beautiful blue eyes lost their glimmer, then drifted shut. The color washed out of her face, her charming pallor draining into waxy lifelessness.

He strained to hear her lungs flutter—

To hear her heart take one last beat.

It may as well have been his own; his world descended into darkness. _Kagome is human,_ he remembered suddenly. 

And humans have an unfortunate habit of dying.

_“Sesshoumaru, have you someone to protect?”_ His father’s voice, an echo from a distant memory, flitted about the edges of his memory.

“_Someone to protect? This Sesshoumaru has no need of such.”_

The words of a blind fool.

What arrogance led him to draw out Naraku’s torment? What foolish conceit led him to believe that he had nothing to lose in this encounter? As it turned out, he had _everything to lose_.

And he lost.

The cold within him reached his fingers, which turned to ice, trembling in grief.

_Kagome is dead._

Tenseiga hummed again, and again, a throbbing, insistent sound. It vibrated in its scabbard, rattling against Bakusaiga at his hip. Only his utter bafflement at this sensation could move his gaze from her face. He settled quaking fingers on its hilt, hoping to still it so he might grieve in peace. At his touch though, the sword seemed to shiver with excitement, pulsing faster and faster, pitch increasing with its rising tension.

He drew Tenseiga from its scabbard, and the thrumming stopped at once.

Puzzled, he turned the sword in his grip, but both sides appeared as they always had; ever useless, a sword that cannot cut. Something moved in his peripherals; he raised his eyes. Sickly, mud-colored creatures with bulbous eyes and bloated bellies, crawled around her, mouths drooling with excitement. He knew these beasts—they came to take her soul to the underworld.

One last violent pulse from the sword in his icy hand, and Sesshoumaru knew what he must do. He heard, vaguely, a cry of Kagome’s name in the distance, the footfalls of a youkai woman and a human man as they barreled toward him. But Sesshoumaru had no time to waste on them. With a flick of his wrist, the demons crowding around Kagome, teasing her soul from her body, turned to dust.

Sesshoumaru watched, transfixed, as broken bone, rent muscle and shredded skin knit together, erasing any trace of the lethal wound Naraku inflicted on her. And yet…

And yet, Kagome did not move.

Sesshoumaru held his breath, the better to listen for any indication of life.

“Kagome!” the man cried, held back by the woman, both sobbing uncontrollably.

“_Silence!_” Sesshoumaru roared, eyes still fixed on Kagome, ears still tuned her way.

The two quieted immediately, shaking, whether from shock or fear he could not say. Nor did he care. Nothing existed in this world outside of the raven-haired woman laying immobile on the ground.

His hand squeezed tighter around the Tenseiga.

Still, she did not move.

Sesshoumaru exhaled, and as he did, he thought he heard—

There. Again. The faint lub-dub of a beating heart.

Too soft, too slow—but there! There, it came again. A little stronger, a little quicker.

The ice that encased him began to thaw. A rush of warmth flooded from his core to his extremities. His life, resuming in tandem with hers. In his hand, Tenseiga vibrated just once, a smug little thing, as though saying ‘not so useless now, am I?’ He sheathed it, and the rest of the room came back into view.

The couple were huddling over Kagome’s form, exclaiming, examining, _reveling_ in her return to life. But Sesshoumaru could not allow himself to be a part of it—not yet.

He must first see to the business that brought about her end.

Naraku’s body appeared beyond repair, but it had been so once before, and still he managed to return to life. This time, however, Sesshoumaru would be certain to extinguish any chance for revival.

Lips pulling back with grim satisfaction, Sesshoumaru unsheathed Bakusaiga, and with one final blow, removed Naraku permanently from the world of the living.

-+-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, how are we doing so far? It mattered a lot to me that Sesshoumaru should accept his inability to turn Kagome away before she died. Hopefully that came across well in the text.
> 
> The waka at the beginning of this chapter is an allusion to another poem. The other poem pities a visitor coming to see the writer in snowfall, when the path has been wiped out. This poem has a slightly different perspective. Anyone want to take a stab at how it relates to the chapter?
> 
> This story is already complete, so expect the next chapter on Sunday, September 29th!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I split up Act III also. I just… I just write at length, I guess. Lemons ahead! To skip, just skip the section between ‘-‘s.
> 
> Lemon CWs for like, suuuuper mild d/s undertones, blink and you miss it overstimulation.

-+-

**Shikizaki : An Omikuji Variation**

Act III Part I

-+-

Here in my cottage

I forget

my loneliness,

thanks to the blossoms—

only to find myself waiting

for someone

to show them to.

-+-

Myouga, a few months delayed, at last brought a cardboard file box to Sesshoumaru’s apartment. A cursory review of its contents revealed that he had finally fulfilled his promise, delivering into his hands a small selection of restored journals from his father’s archives. More to the point, the specific journals and sheaves of loose paper within the box appeared to have been curated around a particular subject: the cultivation of reiki.

Sesshoumaru, noting this, raised his eye at the flea. For his part, Myouga said nothing, merely smiled serenely, bowed, and took his leave.

His timing could not have been better. Since Kagome’s return to life, Sesshoumaru felt at a loss for how to approach her. How to open the lines of communication that he had, foolishly, shut so firmly before. This would provide him with just the opportunities he sought. With a fervor he had not felt for his studies in decades at least, he put together the most relevant and informative documents in as cogent an order as he could manage. His father’s writing, after all, lacked for an internal structure; it meandered, and it did so _at length_.

It took three days to conclude this task. When he did, well after eleven o’clock in the evening, he did not dither; he picked his phone up and shot off a text message immediately.

_I have something I would speak with you about. When are you available this week?_

He hesitated then, considering sending a follow-up message, when he saw the “read” indicator appear, and Kagome’s bubble pop up as she typed a reply. She should not be up.

_You should be sleeping_, he texted. Her bubble disappeared. _Put the phone down. You may inform me tomorrow of your availability_. These messages marked as “read” as well, but Kagome’s text bubble remained dormant. He smiled, then he too put his phone down, and made his way to bed.

When at last she came to his office, she appeared well. Whole. One of the living; indiscernible from those who had never touched death. He counted their meeting a success, as well as the tentative communication, the gentle flirting, that began in its wake. Perhaps the only concern he had came from the single slip she made as they spoke on the phone for the first time; on the topic of the increase in her reiki, she revealed a recent meeting with the wolf prince, when he remarked on the growth of her aura.

It took everything within him to end the phone call on a civil note. Though the mention of the wolf pained him, it meant nothing. Kagome had on numerous occasions denied any feelings for him. They could be friends. They _could_ be friends. Kagome would know to make the correct decision, when presented with a choice. She would choose Sesshoumaru. He knew this.

They continued to dance delicately around one another. A tension rose between them—not one of discomfort, rather, the pleasant tension of those experiencing a mutual affection that went unvoiced between them. He wanted to relieve that tension; wanted to express his affections to her.

But the timing mattered. He could not burst into her apartment and declare himself _now_—she had a roommate, after all, and he did not want to risk interruption. So he delayed. Christmas, a lover’s holiday, loomed. Roommate and lover would doubtless escape for some type of romantic weekend away, leaving Kagome available for his visit.

While he cared little for human customs, the favored meal of the holiday—fried chicken and cake—received such a degree of advertising and attention that even he, Sesshoumaru, the Killing Perfection, had become aware of the tradition. When Christmas day rolled around, he dithered about in his apartment, attempting to pass the time by organizing his bookshelf, working on his newest manuscript, and responding to emails at his personal account relating to territorial disputes between a kitsune tribe and their neighboring bear youkai clan. Usually, his mother as figurehead would be the one to attend to these matters, but every so often she would lose her patience and delegate them to him.

Only the prospect of taking on this burden full-time kept him from unseating his mother from her position of power. He would have to succeed her eventually, likely in another millennium or so. Until then, he would continue to live in relative freedom, enjoy his time as his own, and put off strapping on that yoke for as long as possible.

The correspondence became heated, and he rather lost track of time. By the time he freed himself from his computer, he was behind schedule, and high-tailed it to the konbini to search for the offering he intended to make.

When he entered the small shop, however, his nose honed in on Kagome’s lingering scent trail, and followed it around the store. She had stopped by the cakes, touched two containers on either side of a gap on the shelf; she had also stood at the counter by the fried chicken, tapping hands and fingers on its surface.

Perhaps he ought to have planned better.

But whether he came to her with an offering or not, he felt certain of his reception.

He sent her a number of text messages as he walked the distance to her apartment. He had caught her in the middle of her training, as it turned out. When he entered her building, he could feel the sizzling fluctuations in her power the moment he arrived on her floor.

Then the reiki grew.

Possessed suddenly by an urge to annoy her, he pulled his phone from his pocket and sent another message. _Well?_

From outside her door he heard her huff, her thumbs tapping at her screen. _I’d probably be doing better if you weren’t texting and interrupting me every three seconds_, she replied.

A small smile graced his lips. _Allow me to offer a solution to that_, he replied. Then: _Open your door._

He heard her gasp, her little groan of frustration. The frantic way she shuffled off the couch and over to the door. The sound of hands smoothing clothing, smoothing hair. How endearing, her concern for her appearance. Did she not know that he could find her nothing but beautiful? Perhaps a little comical as well, but always beautiful.

They exchanged a few appropriate words, she offered coffee and food in hospitality. Sesshoumaru placidly followed her lead, taking a drink of the steaming beverage and then setting the mug carefully down on the coffee table on one of the wooden coasters there. A silence descended upon them. He considered how best to break it, settling on a little tease. “Now you need not worry that I will text you to interrupt, as I am here to do so in person,” he pronounced, and Kagome scoffed out a laugh. “Please, continue your practice. I shall observe.”

“Okay.” She crossed her legs below her and settled into the cushions. Eyes closed, she began her breathing exercises once more.

Deep breaths in flowed into deep breaths out. The rise and fall of her chest, the gentle flutter of her lashes in concentration, the tightening of her fingers on her knees in effort, all painted a charming picture, made lovelier by the faint pink glow that grew around her, then flowed to concentrate in her hands.

The air around them warmed. A static-like sensation skittered across his skin. He found himself helpless but to give in to his curiosity, to feel the brunt of her power for himself. He reached out with both hands, pressing his own energy into his palms, and closed them over the pink force that emanated from hers.

A grunt, as his hands scorched and burned, flesh melting, burn blisters forming. Kagome recoiled at once, then reached for him immediately, “are you okay? Let me see!” falling from her lips. He obeyed, amused, and reassured her that they were already healing. She gaped up at him, momentarily lost for words. “Why did you _do _that?”

He huffed a laugh. “It was starting to sting,” he said, not giving her the complete truth. She blinked her incomprehension and he clarified, “the build-up of so much reiki in such a near vicinity. I simply extinguished it.”

Kagome narrowed her eyes, studying his face. He could feel the warmth in his irises, the warmth in his cheeks, and knew what conclusions she would be drawing. “Are you—are you _turned on_?” she gasped, proving him correct.

He shrugged, disentangling his hands from hers and placing them primly in his lap, though he did not separate himself from her on the couch. The last time they had lain together, the impetus had been the pull of her spiritual strength, the way it teased at his skin. “I have puzzled over it as well. Though it has been decades since my last encounter with a Miko, and certainly centuries at least since meeting with one possessed of strength like yours, you are unique in eliciting these responses.” He traversed the space between them with his hand, gently clasped his fingers around hers.

Would she respond in the same manner? He pressed his youki around her, licking it up her legs, down the smooth skin on the insides of her forearms, tenderly along her cheek. To his delight, she gasped and met his gaze, blushing hotly when she read the intention in his half-lidded eyes.

“Perhaps I am not alone in my affliction,” he surmised, rough voice pitched low. Her lashes fluttered as he leaned in, head tilting slightly. He pressed his lips gently to hers once, twice, and then touched his forehead to hers as he breathed out a sigh.

He heard a labored swallow. “I thought I told you not to do this to me again.”

He brought her closer to him, turned his head so that his nose pressed against her neck in an intimate display. This one liberty taken, he disengaged himself from her. He had rehearsed what he would say, but the words escaped him now. At length, he replied, “you are seeking assurances that this is not a repetition of what has occurred before. That I am not merely satisfying my curiosity; that this is not a passing fancy.” He licked his lips. “It is not,” he asserted, accompanying the statement with a squeeze of her fingers.

She required no further reassurance.

In her bed, they exchanged words of comfort, of affection. Then, they expressed those words through their bodies.

He woke for the third time as the moon progressed in its descent. He pulled her closer into his arms, buried his nose in her hair and breathed deeply of their combined scent. The conversation prior to their last coupling bubbled up in his mind. “I find your fragility fascinating,” he had said.

She reached up to tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. “Oh?”

“But though fragile, you are not weak.” His finger trailed down her sternum stopped when he reached her bellybutton. It circled the landmark once before stopping its travel south. In a low, smooth voice, he crooned into her ear: “I could snap your neck with a flick of my wrist. Melt your flesh with my poison. Turn you into dust with my sword. But harming you is unthinkable to me. No other holds that honor. You alone are safe from me.”

In the end she had not taken it as the compliment he had intended it to be. A cultural difference, perhaps. One bridged by their coupling, a sensual and prolonged affair. Recalling it now, a warmth suffused him, bringing a tension to his abdomen, to his groin.

He felt himself stiffening where he pressed against her, the echo of her moans and sighs exciting the beating of his heart. He nuzzled at the top of her head again, then raised himself onto his elbow so that he could reach her cheek. A soft kiss there, then along the angle of her jaw, and her lashes fluttered as she woke.

-

“Sesshoumaru?” she asked, turning in his hold, burrowing her head sleepily against his chest. “What time is it?”

“Nearly three,” he replied, smoothing a hand down her back, reaching to cup her bottom and bring her closer to him.

Her fingers, splayed against his chest, travelled between their bodies and grabbed hold of him, fondling his shaft gently. “Again?” she asked on sleepy exhalation, pressing her lips to his chest.

“Yes,” he replied, touching his hand to her shoulder and pushing her onto her back so he could hold himself above her.

When his earlier compliment had fallen flat, he had offered her an alternative: “I suppose you would rather hear effusive panegyrics devoted to your beauty, perhaps?” But she had declined, that it would be unlike him, that it would creep her out. Now, looking at her from above, her dark hair curling about her head in an unruly halo, her skin flushed with a burgeoning desire, the soft, tantalizing peaks of her breasts rising with each breath, he felt he could prove her wrong.

The praise on the tip of his tongue never made it out of his mouth. Her lips stilled his as she rose on her elbows and gifted him with a kiss, a dreamy smile on her face as she pulled away.

“Somehow I never thought we’d be here like this,” she murmured when he touched his nose to her jawline, taking in a deep breath of her sweetly familiar fragrance. Her hand drifted down his back, tracing the knobs on his spine, her legs twined with his.

He pressed his pelvis forward, a gentle friction against her mons, earning him a satisfied sigh from his lover, her breath stirring his bangs. “And somehow I was certain we would never be,” he replied, taking the soft skin of her neck behind her ear between his teeth in a soft nip. “I am grateful to have been incorrect.”

Her voice vibrated her throat as she hummed her agreement. The gentle pressure of his pelvis against hers repeated, once and then again, beginning a relaxed rhythm. His hand drifted between them to seek the small pearl of her pleasure, hidden between short curls, applying a delicate touch with his middle finger in concert with the movement of his hips.

The groan that this careful attention tore from her set the small hairs on the back of his neck on end, electrified his skin, increased the urgency of the sweet rutting of their bodies. He dipped his finger down between her folds, felt the moisture of new arousal, the tackiness of their previous pleasures. Her grip on his bicep tightened and her body wriggled. “Tender?” he asked, stilling his movements, pulling up to look her in the eyes.

A charming flutter as her eyelashes lowered, a delicate blush coloring her cheeks. “Tender,” she confirmed. The teasing in her expression as she met his eyes delighted him. “It’s big. Twice feels like a lot.”

He chuckled, pressing his finger against her again, examining the puffiness of her entrance, slightly swollen from the intensity of their prior couplings. “Perhaps we should rest instead,” he said, lowering his lips to her forehead for a gentle kiss.

But Kagome caught him by the wrist when he started to draw away. She shook her head slightly, cheek pressing against his. “If we take it easy,” she suggested.

“Slowly,” he agreed, raising himself above her, pushing his digits within her once more, savoring the sweet moan it pulled from her when he withdrew, advanced. When he pulled them out entirely, it was to coat the head of his still throbbing member, swirling her juices about the already glistening head. He gave it a few preemptory tugs to help manage the building tension coiling within him before touching it to her.

Kagome spread her legs further, arched her pelvis upward to meet him, but he did not allow her to take what he was not ready to give. “Slowly,” he reminded her, teasing them both as he pressed ever so slightly forward before pulling back to his starting position. These coy intrusions into her body, her glistening folds sliding over his sensitized cockhead but never very far.

“Sesshoumaru,” she murmured, turning her face to the side, breathing in deeply.

But he continued this pleasant, tingling torture, adding to it the gentle swipe of his thumb against her erected clitoris with each advance. “Slowly,” he reminded her, aware that this soft teasing would bring frustration quicker than satisfaction, eager for her to ask—to _demand_—than he forgo slowness and gentleness, tenderness be damned.

She squirmed beneath him, reached for his hips and pressed down with her feet, trying to arch enough to take him in, but his strength far surpassed hers, and his keen attention to even the most minute of her movements resulted in the successful evasion of her every attempt. At long last, her brow furrowed and she shot him a venomous glare. “Sesshoumaru,” she demanded, but his name was not the request he wanted.

“Ask for what you desire,” he whispered, lips tickling at her ear.

“Sesshoumaru, please,” she moaned, goosebumps spreading on the fragile skin of her neck where his breath had ghosted against her. “I need you.”

“Yes,” he managed past the hitching of his breath, and at last filled her, fulfilled them both.

A long, long moan bubbled over from Kagome’s lips, and he pressed his own to them to taste it, nestling himself as deep as he could manage. He righted himself and stilled within her, her tender flesh parted around him, his pelvic bone tight to her mons, his thumb trapped between their bodies as he continued the gentle flicking touch to her quivering clit. It took almost more control than he had to keep his hips steady, to refrain from repeating the delicious slide of his body into hers.

He waited until once more, her fingers tightened on his arms and her feet pressed down on the mattress, pushing her body up into his. Then, gently, he pressed her down to the bed with a hand to her shoulder, the other still between them, fingers splayed over her lower abdomen, a gentle pressure downwards, increasing the snugness of her body around his. “Slowly,” he murmured, and moved, grinding against her but not withdrawing, feeling the head of his phallus bump the smooth flesh of her belly upward into his hand.

A heady power overcame him at the sensation, and he loosed a groan, head rolling forward to his chest. Kagome below him, panted and wriggled, her fingers drawing up her body, the most tantalizing sight, plucking and gently twisting her nipples. Little moans of pleasure erupted from her lips with each press of his thumb, each press of his hips. Though their movements were small, the force behind them compensated; the heat coiling within his body grew, his muscles bunched and tensed, holding back his release.

At last, the soft sweet sounds surrounding them overruled his control. He withdrew from her all at once, the chill of the evening air against his dripping member electrifying. Kagome tossed her head below him. When he pressed forward, he paused when fully nestled within her, then withdrew again. Over and over, he filled her to the hilt, holding for a breath once inside, then pulling all the way out to rub himself against her once more. Each time, her body tightened around him, her pleasure nearing its peak.

He gripped her hips in both hands, pulling her into him as his rhythm lost the pause, now long strokes in and out, forceful but steady. His sac drew up tight, and his teeth sank down into his lip. His blood coursed hot, pulsing, his abdomen clenched. A hitched breath from his lover, and her jaw went slack.

Sesshoumaru’s eyes rolled closed as her body tightened around him, flooded with moisture, and then began that rhythmic clench and release, coaxing him to his own completion. But he held firm throughout it, slowing his thrusts, luxuriating in the sensation of her silken flesh closing about him, the warm wetness of her nectar as he drew it from her with each thrust, coating her inner thighs and dripping down his sac.

“Sesshoumaru—” she groaned, fingers closing over his own where he held her hips. She still spasmed inside, though the waves of her orgasm were subsiding.

He continued the slowed pace only until her writhing stopped and her breathing evened out. His own crisis averted, he moved his left hand and gently touched the pad of his finger to her still sensitized nub.

Kagome’s whole body spasmed and she launched herself as upright as she could in his hold. “Sesshoumaru!” But she made no further protest when he rocked into her and repeated that soft touch, only moaning and dropping back onto the mattress.

The clutch of her around him set his skin on fire. He teetered on the edge of orgasm already, but with the sweet fluttering of her sheath, the tortured sighs on her lips, and the heat pulsing through his own veins, he found himself lost.

Pulsing and warm, his spend shot from him, slickening her passage as he continued soft, shallow thrusts, fingers still strumming at her gently, encouraging her own blissful aftershocks as they milked him dry. His hips stuttered and stilled. He wanted to keep moving, to prolong the pleasure a moment longer, but he too had grown tender. When the twitching of his member subsided, he withdrew at last, and laid himself beside her.

“Wanna go again?” she teased, laughing.

“Tender,” he replied, smiling in return.

“I think three is a good place to stop,” she murmured.

“You may change your mind,” he hummed, nuzzling into her neck once more. Her only response was a little chuckle as she turned into his hold and burrowed against his chest, shaking her head ‘no’.

As it turned out, a little after five in the morning, they woke again, and she did.

**-**

Their courtship, which began marked by the ease in which they shared company, hit a stumbling block early on. Sesshoumaru felt certain that Kagome paid only fleeting attention to the moment that marked it, though it remained with him, cycling repeatedly in his mind whenever he reflected on the course of things between them.

At Higurashi Shrine, he stood peering over her shoulder, watching her fingers tremble in the cold as she held an innocuous paper fortune aloft for their mutual consideration. A peculiar human custom, but one she seemed to value highly.

‘Half-Blessing’, it read, and she did not seem entirely mollified by the future it promised her. Recalling that one need not accept the fortune as a given, that one could tie it away, he extended the question to her. “What will you do with it?” he asked. “Will you tie it up as you did the previous?”

Kagome shrugged, though she appeared to still be considering her answer. At length, she released a deep sigh before depositing the paper into his palm. “You decide,” she said, much to his surprise. Something about the ritual struck him as intensely personal, and her passing the duty to him conflicted directly with what he intuited to be proper. “It was nice to read back on it at the end of the year,” she added. “But I don't know that I want to have it on my mind for the next twelve months.”

“You will not wonder?” His eyebrow quirked upward in disbelief.

“I mean, I will. But only for a while. Life is too short for a long memory.”

Those latter eight words formed the stumbling block that he found himself tripping on for the remainder of the year: _Life is too short for a long memory_. An easy dismissal of something unimportant to her, but to him so heavily laden with meaning—

He ran those words over and over through his mind.

He _knew_ of her mortality. Had been reminded of the fact in the most painful way of all: by having to witness her death first hand, and in a large way feeling responsible for it. Every day he said his thanks for her resurrection. But the fact remained that, unlike his own, her lifespan came with a limit. He would wake up one day not long from now, and she would be centuries gone behind him.

She, having been the one that died, would be equally as aware of her own mortality. But in those eight words, she dismissed the importance of that eventuality.

And Sesshoumaru’s memory, like his life, was terribly long. Every time those eight words played in his mind, he would then recall the blank and desolate expression on Inuyasha’s face the last time they met.

“The world has no color without her,” Inuyasha had said, and at the time Sesshoumaru did not understand him. Now, having lost Kagome once—and that, when their bond had been in its more superficial iteration, a product of instinct and attraction, of partiality rather than true affection—he thought he could understand. Thinking forward to her inevitable end, though… could he endure the pain that made Inuyasha seek an end to his own life?

Kagome was human, and humans died.

Could he allow himself to come to love her, knowing the eventual outcome?

On the nights they spent together, while she slept, he would weigh his options, the possible routes their path might take. But the terminal point never changed.

A romantic might suggest that he instigate a search to find a way to tie her life to his, to unite their lifespans. But a search of that kind would be fruitless. Though magic existed still in this world, there had never been a magic powerful enough, invasive enough, to manipulate the souls of two creatures in such a profound way.

His mind flitted briefly to the Shikon no Tama. Ostensibly, Midoriko still lived, trapped within its confines, and not alone. But the magic that created the Jewel disappeared long ago. Even if it remained, he would still never condemn them to such an existence as that. Stoic he might be, ascetic in some ways, too, but even he could not stomach the idea of an eternity trapped entirely away from the world, cherished partner beside him or not.

Still, he found that the more time he spent in her company, the more he wanted to be a part of her heart, regardless of the ever-present pull to pen his own off from her reach. Though the battle, a conscious warring between desire and rationality, persisted, he found that when at her side, events had a way of escaping his control. In some ways, he found this exciting. But it did not occur to him how entirely out of hand things had become, until the events preceding and on the day they met Ikami.

Tanaka met him, barefoot, in the building’s lobby, explaining that there had been an incident in which a neighborhood youkai obtained an injury as a result of Kagome’s training in her home. Kagome came running immediately from her apartment, doubtless seeking solace in Sesshoumaru’s arms, but he had not been home. By some odd twist of fate, Ikami called within a fortnight of this devastating event, offering her services.

Of course, by some readings, one might suggest he should have expected her to appear. Kagome’s omikuji fortune predicted her arrival, after all.

The timing seemed perfect. They arranged to meet.

The woman impressed, on initial acquaintance. She behaved respectfully but not obsequiously, presented herself tidily, and had good references. Her background as a stand-in mother to two hanyou children must have put some ideas into her head, because although Sesshoumaru and Kagome maintained a respectable distance throughout the meeting, she eventually did turn to address him, a rise in her brow just suggestive enough to indicate that her question to Kagome, “you must be the recipient of some good advice…?” implied a much more intimate relationship.

And here is when his hands did the speaking for him, much to the delight of his cardiovascular organ, and the frustration of his center of reason.

He covered Kagome’s fingers with his own, a silent gesture to allow him to speak for them both. Kagome’s unexpected docility in the face of this wordless request pleased him. He answered Ikami directly, words as possessive as his persistent hold of Kagome’s hand on the tabletop. “You will have surmised that Higurashi is under my protection.”

Ikami nodded slightly, eyes widening in her soft face. She took his meaning perfectly; Kagome seemed comparatively unaffected.

He proceeded to take control of the progression of events, expressing his position of dominance. Ikami remained suitably deferential, though something sly persisted in her smile, almost teasing. Unable to resist striking back at that taunt, he spoke once more. “You have all of March before classes resume, but bear in mind that as a graduate student, despite the break, _Kagome_ has commitments at her University,” Sesshoumaru’s low voice added at length, vibrating through the quiet.

Now, Kagome looked up at him, eyebrows raised, eyes wide. Had she not been expecting him to demonstrate his affection before others? The use of her given name might be a bit much, he would willingly concede, but the point needed to be made.

The point that no matter what, she was _his_.

It struck him, of course, that this made him highly hypocritical. After all, he found himself _unwilling_ to concede that the reverse might be true.

If he became _hers _in return, then all hope would be lost, and like his father and his brother before him, he would end up losing his life to his feelings for a human woman.

No matter how highly he regarded her, he could not accept this outcome.

The time came, as he always knew it would, when Kagome caught on to the turbulence of his thoughts. It became increasingly difficult to keep those niggling doubts from intruding on their time together. He attempted to distract himself by distracting her—seduction his preferred method—but once he brought her to fruition, excitement at the prospect of finding his own completion palled.

This came to head one evening, after she spent the afternoon with Ikami in training, though the tutor seemed to have found less mission-oriented topics to cover during class.

“She’s been through a lot, and especially because of her kids, I guess,” Kagome said, reclined next to him on his mattress, blue eyes boring holes into Sesshoumaru’s profile. “And Tenya-san too. It must take an extraordinary character to be willing to be in a relationship where they know they will lose their partner. And three times!”

He said nothing, and continued combing her black tresses, luxuriating in the simple pleasure of grooming her, the feeling of her silky black hair sliding between his fingers.

Voice much smaller this time, she added, “_You_ wouldn’t… would you?”

He knew the question she meant to ask. Slowly, he pulled his hand away from her hair. “Three times, or do you mean ‘even once’? I confess your mortality has weighed heavily on my mind. That is what you really wanted to know, is it not?”

Kagome looked into his eyes, her own doe-like irises glittering with moisture. “I just feel like you’ve been keeping me at arm’s length,” she whispered.

Perceptive, as usual. “And indeed I have.”

Kagome flinched but kept the tears at bay, blinking fiercely. “Would you tell me why?”

_Life is too short for a long memory._

A sigh through his suddenly parched lips. Anything less than complete honesty would damage the peace between them. “However much I may desire it not to be so, it is inevitable that you will predecease me in what to a youkai would feel like the blink of an eye. Humans, further, are not known to be long-lived in their affections,” he paused, reaching out and touching her shoulder. “I am content to be beside you, to share in your life, however, I am not as yet certain that I am able to share mine.”

He had no real fear that she would come to love another and leave him behind; how could she? Given the choice between him and some stranger, she would know to choose correctly. But the fact remained that, in her words of long ago, _life is too short._

“Oh,” said Kagome, voice a thready thing, cheeks flooded with color, eyes watering a little more. “I need to think about that a little,” came the strained words. “Can we talk about this more later?”

The conversation ended peaceably, but a new tension arose between them thereafter. She found no satisfaction at being kept at arm’s length, he knew. That he had hurt her with his honesty pained him. When cherry blossom season approached, he saw a chance to repair the rift.

His mother would be in town—not for long, but sufficiently so to necessitate their meeting—and had requested that he join her for _hanami_ the morning of her last day. Experience taught him that visiting with his mother, a trying undertaking at best, could be the stuff of nightmares at worst. He would relish the chance to paint over what promised to be a harrowing morning, with the balm of Kagome’s pleasant company in the evening. With this thought in mind, he invited her to see the blossoms with him.

It did not go as planned.

At first, the evening appeared promising. Kagome looked in a mood to be pleased, eyes sparkling and wide and a little smile tugging at her full lips without prompting. In the low lamplight in the tea garden at the crest of the mountain, surrounded by the blush-colored blooms above them, her beauty had no peer. He could not take his eyes from her.

And then she raised the very topic he sought to purge from his memory banks: family.

“My family wants to meet you.”

His spine stiffened.

“Does that… feel like things are moving too fast?”

He considered for a moment. Meeting her family would be an honor, and he told her so. The responding beam of happiness in her smile lit up her face most attractively. “Maybe over Golden Week?” she suggested.

Still taken with the loveliness of her contentment, he reached forward to tuck a lock of hair that tumbled around in the breeze back behind her ear. “Perhaps before or after? I’m afraid I have some family matters and community gatherings to attend over the course of the holidays.”

“Oh,” Kagome started, lips rounding and brows furrowing in confusion. “I didn’t realize— I’d thought—”

She thought he had no family remaining. She knew of his sire, of his half-brother, but he had never spoken of anyone else. “My mother,” he groused, “is still alive and well.” Much to the detriment of his mental health.

“I _know_ Mama will love you,” Kagome said, a soothing hand petting his knee. “Do you think yours will mind me very much…?”

His surprise must have shown on his face—the disappointment written over hers provided proof enough of that.

Kagome had never, as yet, returned his courtship demonstrations.

Skipping to meeting the family…

He would not expose her to his mother, if he could avoid it. But even before that thought, came the surprise that Kagome would actively desire to meet her—that she would actively desire to meet _any_ of his kin.

The very moment she began to turn her face away from him, pinching her eyes closed, he saw how deeply his perceived rejection had hurt her. Urgently, he reached forward with calm, wrapping a hand around her and pressing her back to his chest. He held her close.

His name left her lips in a piteous whimper.

The smell of salt breached the air.

He waited, but she did not speak again. “You’re warm,” he announced, attempting to lull her. “Another fever.” She seemed to be having many of those recently. “Would you like to go back?”

She agreed.

After that, the strain between them became almost palpable. He respected her need for distance, though it pained him.

And then, Kagome became truly ill. If he could burn the fortune that foretold it, he would. But it remained untouched in his desk drawer.

He barely saw her for weeks—stolen glances when they crossed paths on campus—all out of respect for her need for space. When he at last returned to her side, visiting her in the hall closet that she had moved into after her lease with Sango expired, her frailty stunned him nearly enough to stop his heart.

Coagulating hyperyoukemia, her doctor hypothesized. A load of utter garbage.

As he sat on her mattress and held Kagome in his arms, her pale, sweat-drenched face turned down into his lap, he considered that he should probably kill the doctor; her diagnosis so obviously off the mark, her incompetence forcing his Kagome’s continuing suffering. His hand settled on her head, alternately massaging her scalp and carding through her hair, duller now, its lustre quite gone. “Rest now. I will accompany you until you fall asleep.”

She mumbled unintelligibly into his lap.

His hand drifted down to her forehead, appalled at how her temperature climbed. He knew that humans would often shiver when feverish, so when her body began to jitter in his lap, he did not worry.

But then her smell changed, and the shaking took on a jerky quality quite different from the soft trembles before.

“Kagome,” he commanded, voice firm, betraying none of his anxiety, though she did not come back to herself.

She was seizing, he felt certain of it. His heart slowed, his vision narrowed to her spasming form.

An image of her, the color draining from her face, the life from her eyes, blood pooling around her on the cave floor, drifted before his eyes.

Turning her efficiently to her side, he lowered his lips right next to her ear. “Kagome!” he tried again. But though he petted her and called her name, though he exerted his youki to _soothe_, nothing he attempted would revive her.

Another few seconds passed before her body became lax in his hold. She blinked blearily. “I’m sorry,” she tilted her head up to look at him from where it lay in his lap. “I’m so out of it.”

The hospital. Now.

He did not bother with driving. Holding Kagome, asleep in his arms, he transmuted them into a ball of energy, jetting through the air quickly enough to rattle the windows as they passed.

It seemed his first meeting with her family would be under far less pleasurable circumstances than those he had originally envisioned. Mrs. Higurashi, son in tow, answered his summons to the hospital without delay. Kagome had not seized again, thankfully, though she sunk into sleep and remained there unless exerted to waken.

The likeness between parent and child, though expected, startled. The only perceivable differences were the changes attributable to age and the coloring of their eyes. In personality, however, the variances were manifold. Higurashi-san carried herself with an unperturbable calm, seeming as stoic in the face of her daughter’s hospitalization as a complete stranger might.

For a moment he wondered if little affection existed between them, but when the mother sat at the bedside and took Kagome’s hand in her own and clasped it gently, her eyes shaded over with worry, and the affection and concern in them reassured him that Kagome’s mother would not be like his own.

“Higurashi-san?” He knocked on the door, from where he watched silently, letting himself into the hospital room to join her.

“You’re—” this from the young man on the other side of the bed. Kagome’s little brother. He pressed his lips together tightly and crossed his arms, displeasure written in the deep lowering of his eyebrows.

Sesshoumaru wondered what he had done to affront the young man so. Setting the question aside for future reflection, he approached the matriarch. “Aotsuki Sesshoumaru,” he introduced himself on a deep bow.

“Oh my,” Higurashi-san replied, fingertips reaching up to cover the ‘o’ her mouth made in surprise. “You’re the boyfriend then. She said you were handsome, but that description was clearly lacking.” This, said factually, without intent to flatter. “I’m her mother, of course. Higurashi Mamiko. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Under these unfortunate circumstances…” he shook his head.

Higurashi-san sighed, looking at her daughter for the space of a breath before turning to her son. “Well. And this is Souta, of course.”

The men exchanged appraisals. Young Souta, still waving his displeasure like a banner, seemed reluctant to further acknowledge Sesshoumaru, let alone speak to him, but a muttered reprimand from his mother made him bow and introduce himself appropriately. _Ah_, Sesshoumaru mused, _to be but a pup._

“A pleasure,” Sesshoumaru murmured suitably before refocusing on Higurashi-san. He recounted to her the events of the evening, the discussions that had occurred with the medical staff. “There have been no recurrent events, but they will want her to remain the night for observation.”

“Of course,” Higurashi-san replied, moving to one of the bedside chairs to settle into it. “You must be tired,” she intoned, a firmness to her voice that brooked no argument. She implied gently that he might like to return home, “but please do come in the morning, and we can all have breakfast together.”

How could he but do as she bid?

Kagome discharged from the hospital not days later, and though the physicians deemed her to be in generally good health, once released, the intermittent fevers continued. Sesshoumaru wanted to solve the riddle of her illness, but sensed that his initiative would not be welcomed unless directly invited.

So he waited.

At last, she approached him, but not to request his assistance, per se. Rather, she called to float a rather improbable theory of youki poisoning past him.

“… I see.” He chewed on that for a while, considering whether it could be possible for a human to become ill from too much exposure to youki. Possible or not, he chose to see the conversation as an opportunity to remind her that of all her allies, none were better equipped to find her an answer than he. “I am pleased you have brought this to my attention, even though it appears you have consulted every other possible source first.”

“_Excuse_ me?” she asked, the genuine affront in her voice a curious thing.

“Keeping me at arm’s length, or trying to spare yourself some pain again, perhaps?” Probably a little petty, but he must acknowledge that this particular wound, obtained while arguing about her new living arrangements, still stung.

Kagome, on the other end of the line, sputtered, “I asked my doctor first because she’s a _doctor_, and my cousin next because he has _resources_. Then I came to you.”

“Darling girl,” he murmured, “did you forget that of everyone you know, not one of them has access to greater resources than this Sesshoumaru?”

“I must have,” she groused, petulant.

“Allow me some time, and I will find someone with the answer you seek.”

She gave in, reluctant to cede control of the process, but eager to bring things to a resolution.

In deference to her theory, they kept mostly separate in the intervening weeks before leaving to visit Bokusenou. He knew—just _knew_—that the old tree would still be holding a grudge over Sesshoumaru’s last visit. Hopefully, with Kagome at his side, the old tree would behave himself.

Now that he had become used to touching her when he liked—now that access to the comfort of her skin became a regularly granted privilege, a habit between them both—maintaining a distance from her became a near insurmountable challenge. His fingers were nearly twitching to reach for her, to stroke her hair or cup her elbow, or settle on her lower back as they walked. The scent of her filled his nose as intensely and gratifyingly as water in a parched man’s mouth.

But once committed to a task, Sesshoumaru would not dismiss it for the sake of transient gratification. He held out.

For weeks, he held out. Until—

Until he didn’t have to anymore.

In the days since she had fallen ill, her waking became a harried thing; coming to alertness on a strangled gasp, as though once drowning and now breaching the surface of the water to take in a life-giving breath. Her lungs rattled, her eyes teared, her nose ran.

Not the case any longer.

Kagome woke the morning of their meeting with Bokusenou without fanfare. Her breathing changed, her heart rate increased, and slowly her lashes fluttered open to let in the morning light. He enjoyed watching her wake, made a pastime of it; she woke like the princess of a fairytale, life kissing her lips into redness, a subtle flush on her cheeks, and eyes glittering almost fantastically.

Ever since her death, watching her return to life after a night of deep slumber relieved his spirit as much as it satisfied his aesthetics. The cloud of her dark hair surrounding her head like a halo, even as she sat up, lent it a little comedy as well.

Though he appreciated the return of his preferred morning performance of waking, the startling change from what he’d grown accustomed to of late jarred him.

Her lips curved into a soft smile, and she bowed her spine, stretching luxuriantly in the futon, heedless of the world around her.

As he took in the smooth curve of her back, the way the light kissed her skin, he noticed it—the ever-diminishing pink glow around her, the manifestation of reiki, had faded to nothing.

Kagome jumped when she noticed him where he leaned against the wall, staring at her as though looking harder would revive the aura now thoroughly burned out. She returned his stare, and suddenly her brows rose, her face smoothed in blank incomprehension. She looked at him as though beholding a stranger. It took mere seconds before her face fell.

“It’s gone,” she whispered, blinking through a rising wall of tears as her gaze wandered to her hands, now fisted together on her lap. “It’s gone,” and her voice broke on the words.

Sesshoumaru approached her slowly, the way one might approach a wounded animal. He sat down beside her on the edge of the bed, wound his arms around her shoulders, and embraced her. Her scent had changed. It lacked the familiar spiciness that he had come to expect. As her nose bumped his chest, a desolate wail ripped from her throat, the realization of just what she had lost finally catching up to her.

He said nothing, but cradled her to him, moving a hand in a comforting motion over her back. In a desperate attempt to soothe her, he reached out, green tendrils of youki wrapping about her, but she remained insensate to them.

She didn’t smell like herself; she could no longer see the part of him that made him _himself_. It felt almost like holding a stranger, and the knowledge that she was still the same Kagome he had come to cherish did not take away the feeling of _wrongness_.

He would grow accustomed to this new Kagome, without a doubt, but still he planned to do everything in his power to return her spiritual energy to her.

The duration of the drive up into park territory, he could feel her anxiety mounting. Any number of things might be plaguing her just now, but the way she avoided looking at him spoke to her fear of his rejection. He could not ease her the way he used to; he would have to find another way. Speaking comfort, however, did not number among his talents. Generally a man of few words, they came even harder to him when their purpose tended to the emotional.

Now that they were involved so intimately, however, he could not escape his emotional responsibility to her, no matter how uncomfortable it made him. Such was the nature of romantic entanglements. “If…” Sesshoumaru cleared his throat, ignoring the way Kagome’s head whipped around to goggle at his hesitance. He glanced at her; she seemed receptive. “I may be misconstruing your anxieties. Please correct me, if I have misunderstood.” He forced in a breath. “It is apparent to me that though the connection with your reiki has been lost, your state of health is dramatically improved today.” A pause. “We persist in seeking a solution to a problem that no longer exists, purely because the Shikon no Tama must be dealt with. If we learn anything of use at all, and whether or not it is ultimately of use, I want to reiterate that my affections for you will remain unchanged.”

The tension in her shoulders unwound slowly along with a lift in her posture, a levity in the lines around her mouth. This pleased Sesshoumaru; he had achieved his aim. “You’d stay with me…” she licked parched lips, blinking widened eyes, “… even knowing I could never truly _see_ you again? Knowing that I would only ever be as weak as the rest of my kind…?”

In truth, the prospect disturbed him. He had always held Kagome above the rest of her species, and could admit, if not aloud, that this owed a great part to her superior strength. But there were other qualities in her that set her apart from the rest: her respectfulness, kindness, the sweet, puppy-like quality of her play, the brilliance of mind that shone like stars twinkling in her eyes.

“I have great confidence in your strength of spirit,” he murmured in response, “whether it eludes your control or not.” His hand had at some point drifted across the car to land on her leg; he tightened his grip minutely, more comfortable with the physical reassurances than the verbal.

The return of her composure boded well for their meeting with Bokusenou. They were seeking to make a certain impression, after all.

“What impression would that be?” Kagome asked from her place pressed into his side, still a little fearful of falling off the cloud that carried them above the trees.

Thinking of his last meeting with Bokusenou and the promise of retribution, he sighed. “On my part, contrition and obeisance. On yours…” he slipped his fingers around hers, noting the coolness of her skin under his touch. Humans were so delicate; so vulnerable to even the slightest changes in temperature. “Charm. An appeal to a traditional sort of charm.”

Kagome’s laughter sounded like the tinkling of a bell, resonant and pure. “Do I have a traditional sort of charm?”

“Not in the least,” he teased, and again his fingers squeezed. “Though we hope perhaps to make that impression.”

“And who are we seeking to impress?”

“The name will be familiar to you. We are seeking an audience with the great Bokusenou.”

A little gasp. “Bokusenou,” she repeated, unable to keep the awe from her voice. But of course, he would be a character in a legend to her, rather than the often trying, if useful, acquaintance that Sesshoumaru knew him as. “But why are we trying to impress him? I thought you were on good terms?”

“Hence the contrition and obeisance,” Sesshoumaru murmured, and their momentum through the sky increased so quickly that Kagome stumbled into his chest. No further words were spoken until they landed and he burried his fingers in her hair, combing it back into some semblance of order. “When I last came to see him, to inquire as to the Jewel, I was not in the best humour, and may have antagonized him greatly. He may have nothing to say to us, petty thing that he can be at times.”

Silly smile on her face, Kagome followed him obediently down the well-worn path through the wood, already embracing her role.

A warm, yellow-tinged light drifted in through the canopy, bouncing off dust motes and turning them into sparkles like falling gold-dust. The thicket thinned suddenly, and through the clearing, Bokusenou’s silhouette came into relief.

Sesshoumaru noted the keen interest, and then the humor in the crinkles around Bokusenou’s eyes as he looked upon his visitors. The thin wooden lips parted to release a deep, resonant voice.

“What a solace

from the loneliness of my home

are cherries in full bloom--

bringing those who never visit

calling at my door.”

His lips closed on the tail end of the recitation, eyes flitting from Kagome to Sesshoumaru and back, where they eventually fixed, widening slightly to take her in better.

“_Never_ _visit_?” Sesshoumaru scoffed. He would have to fight for his answers, after all. Resentful demon! Could he not behave in front of company? Never mind the contrition and obeisance; Bokusenou would help them or Sesshoumaru would rip him up by the roots.

“Indeed, for was not the last time you came tripping over my roots for the sake of the cherries, as well?”

“Cherries?” Kagome piped in.

Those wizened eyes slid back to her and crinkled a little at the corners. “Yes, and in full bloom.”

Kagome frowned. “But aren’t you a magnolia tree…?”

“It is as you say, but it is not for _my_ sake that Sesshoumaru visits, now is it?”

“Bokusenou.” Sesshoumaru cut in, reprimanding the mischievous tree.

“Are you here for the Shikon no Tama yet again, now that its shine cannot be suppressed? Or regarding the illness that has plagued your human and shuttered her spiritual sight? Or… are you here perhaps to seek my blessing in your union, Sesshoumaru?”

Your human.

Kagome’s cheeks lit up, blushing becomingly beside him, and only when he noted this did his mind catch up with the rest of the tree-demon’s words: ‘blessing in your union,’ indeed! His eyes growing progressively narrower in displeasure, Sesshoumaru considered his answer. “We hope that by addressing the second, we might find a way to do something about the first.”

“And the last…?”

This damned tree! “Bokusenou.”

But instead of commenting on any of their concerns, the ancient Magnolia prevaricated. “How long do you intend to remain?”

“Three days,” Kagome answered when Sesshoumaru said nothing. Sesshoumaru redirected his look of displeasure to the woman beside him now. Not one good thing would come out of Bokusenou knowing that information.

“As it happens,” Bokusenou’s tone became flippant, “I have an answer for each of your questions. One answer for each day. Come back tomorrow in the afternoon. Bring something for the birds.”

That would be that, then.

At least the tree planned to be cooperative, if only as a chance to extort favors from him. Bird feed, today.

When they returned the next afternoon, Bokusenou waited until Sesshoumaru finished strewing their offering artfully around the clearing before requesting to know what Kagome knew of her situation.

Her response, though halting at first, came out concise and cogent. Bokusenou seemed impressed, the corners of his thin lips curling up in a small smile. He shot Sesshoumaru an approving glance before returning his attention to the young woman. His eyes squinted in thought as he turned over her words. The wind rustled the canopy above them, sending a handful of leaves drifting to the ground around their feet. “You mention asking yourself what reiki is meant to do, what it is. Did you arrive upon an answer?”

Kagome chewed on her lip. She shifted her weight. “Not really.”

“Not really, or not at all?”

“Not a good one,” she revised. “Not one that didn’t rely on youki to help define it. I could only ever define it in the context of the other.”

This surprised Sesshoumaru. What made that answer unsatisfactory?

Bokusenou blinked, long and slow before echoing Sesshoumaru’s thoughts. “And is that not a ‘good’ answer? Reiki does not exist in isolation. It exists in opposition.” Kagome nodded in reluctant acknowledgement. “Perhaps you were not aware that in addition to being in a state of opposition, the two can also be said to be in a state of interdependence?”

The conversation progressed, and as it did so, a look of growing comprehension smoothed the furrow in Kagome’s brow, parted her lips, and slowed her breath. “Can it really be that simple…?” Kagome muttered at length, eyes lost in the distance.

“What is your conclusion?” Bokusenou asked. Sesshoumaru leaned imperceptibly closer, desirous of hearing her answer.

“That I’ve been so worried about harming others, that I turned the harm on myself. I controlled my reiki into oblivion. I shut off my own tap.” She took a shuddering breath in. “Is it too late to fix it, do you think?” She squeezed the Shikon within her hand, fingers turning white.

The tension eased from his shoulders. So she understood, after all.

“Not in the face of absolute commitment to the solution.” His eyes narrowed now, a wily gleam shimmering within them. “What is _your_ solution, then?”

“…Reciprocal action.”

Bokusenou hummed low, a pleased curve in the line of his lips. He turned to Sesshoumaru then, saying simply, “Fiji water. Lots of it.” And then he closed his eyes.

Sesshoumaru’s heart swelled with pride. Kagome’s intelligence, her quickness, her deep understanding, all served her well today. She impressed. He wanted to reward her.

A delicious meal.

His company as she enjoyed the hot spring bath.

And then, after an eternity, a bone-melting kiss and a fierce embrace as she fell asleep.

She seemed just as well-pleased as he, as he held her in his arms.

But their business resumed the next day. “What of the Shikon no Tama,” Sesshoumaru demanded, having poured fifty liters of Fiji brand water around the roots at the base of Bokusenou’s trunk.

“Have you asked your human if she has any ideas?”

Again—_your human_. Sesshoumaru scoffed.

Kagome bristled in affront. He wondered what offended her so, but listened closely as she chimed in, “I know we can’t destroy it, at least not by breaking it or burning it. I would assume that to be rid of it the energy has to _go_ somewhere. But I wouldn’t know how to accomplish that.” After a beat, “is it true that it can grant a wish?”

Sesshoumaru stepped closer to her and put a quelling hand on her shoulder. Bokusenou, however, laughed. A lengthy history of the Shikon no Tama followed. “Once the Jewel has been purified, and thereby returned to its original state,” Bokusenou concluded, describing an event which could only come about were Kagome to regain her reiki, “then what you will have before you is a treasure box. And within it, two forces, in perfect opposition.”

Neither of them missed the significance of the magnolia tree’s wording. Sesshoumaru’s brow furrowed, as he focused intently on Kagome’s face while considering Bokusenou’s guidance and the subtext in his words. Youki and reiki. Miko and Youkai. “Opposition and interdependence,” he murmured, gently tightening his hold on her shoulder.

“Two forces within, two forces without,” Bokusenou replied. “If that should fail you could always try to make a wish on it, though I doubt very much that either of the two inside should care a jot for your desires. I will continue yet to ruminate on the subject. Perhaps I will arrive at another, more promising possibility.”

The answer before them now, Sesshoumaru felt that he must, for once, make his gratitude clear. He stepped toward Kagome and slid his hand to her opposite shoulder, bringing her in for a tender embrace. They could solve this. She would have her reiki back, and then they, opposite and interdependent, would bring an end to the curse of the Shikon no Tama. He turned his head toward the tree then, ready to give him his share of the credit. “You have my thanks.”

“Potatoes,” Bokusenou demanded, in typical pettishness, and closed his eyes.

Sesshoumaru considered his options that night, as he sat on the cushions on the balcony on their suite, a cup of sweet sake in his hand, Kagome in the bath to his side. Three days for three answers; the latter to a question he had never asked. ‘Seeking my approval in your union’, indeed.

He could ignore the tree-demon’s last request. Or he could honor it. Strategically this made the most sense, so as to avoid angering him further for future visits. “Bokusenou expects that I deliver his potatoes,” Sesshoumaru commented offhand, staring into his sake.

Kagome turned from where she sat in the bath, propping her head on her forearms to look at him as he spoke. “For fertilizer?”

“Hn.” He rolled his neck. “It would be wise to follow through, or risk his further displeasure on my next visit.”

“This time wasn’t so bad, though, was it?” she asked, scooping water from the bath and pouring it over her shoulders and onto her back.

“In deference to your presence, I expect,” Sesshoumaru replied. He stood and ambled over to the side of the _routenburo_. He eased himself to his knees before her, meeting at eye level, and handed her his cup of sake. Obediently, Kagome took a sip. His eyes lingered on the sweet curve of her cheek, drifted down to her lips, raking over her dewy, reddened shoulders.

Slowly, deliberately, he set the cup down on the edge of the bath before framing her face with his hands. His thumb caressed her lower lip for a moment before he leaned in for a sake-sweetened kiss. First one, then another. Kagome met his kisses, more lips than tongue, her own small hands coming up to close around his biceps.

“I will have to go into town to procure them,” he murmured, moving his lips to press more kisses to her face, the line of her jaw, her throat, the tender skin behind her ear, relishing the taste of her skin. “You sleep in. I will go and be back by the time you are ready to leave.”

Kagome nodded her assent, and he pulled away, moving into the bedroom. They didn’t make love that night, but he held her close, and his lips and fingers came to know her body again in a way that they hadn’t for months.

Bokusenou’s smile, when he saw that Sesshoumaru came alone, shone brighter than the morning sun. He made no comment about the potatoes, acknowledging them with barely a nod before asking in his taunting way, “And where is your human today? Or is this a discussion better kept from her delicate ears?”

“Why, what would you have us discuss?” This little bit of coyness would necessitate an awkward answer from Bokusenou; Sesshoumaru could find a little joy in seeing him made uncomfortable.

But the tree demon had no compunction about making himself understood. “Three days for three questions,” his words echoed Sesshoumaru’s thoughts the evening prior. “Have you come to seek my blessing, after all?”

“What use would I have of your blessing?” He scoffed. Only Bokusenou could tease this constantly affronted mien from him.

“None, of course.” Now Bokusenou had his turn to sound slighted. “But given what happened with your father and your brother—”

This train of thought needed to be stopped at once. “Their choices in partner were purely ornamental,” Sesshoumaru cut in savagely, cheeks burning as the magenta stripes became ragged with his agitation. “And they were led by their own weakness to their respective ends.”

Bokusenou’s tone when he spoke again softened to something gentler, placating almost. “Your human is by far the superior of the three, and the best-matched to the youkai that would have her.” Sesshoumaru remained frozen, though the jagged lines smoothed minutely. “Your father…” Bokusenou began, and broke off on a sigh, “much affection as he had for your mother, your father could never be satisfied with what he held in his possession.”

Sesshoumaru grunted in agreement.

“He saw in Izayoi a polished gem, nestled in a beautiful display box. A flowering rose in a well-manicured garden.” He lapsed into private recollection, the breeze rustling his branches and loosing a multitude of leaves, drifting to the ground like feathers. “Lovely, and entirely ill-suited to the life of a General at war-time.”

Again, Sesshoumaru found himself agreeing: “Lovely, and useless.”

“Inuyasha’s choices in lovers were more informed by the human half of his heart, I should think,” Bokusenou continued, not contesting Sesshoumaru’s assertion. “That lamentable affair with the first Miko aside, Rin and he shared a commonality of purpose.”

Sesshoumaru shrugged at this. A purpose they were unable to see to its end. One that he and Kagome would now be tidying up after them.

“But with Rin’s acceptance, Inuyasha came to stagnate, did he not? He dwindled. She could not rise to meet him, so he lowered to meet her.”

Sesshoumaru considered the truth behind those words. Inuyasha’s life beside Rin, after their grand adventure, indeed stagnated. A life of cheerful domesticity, the same routine day in and day out, until things were forced to change by necessity as her body began to decay with her slow march toward death.

It would not be that way for them.

It couldn’t be—his position in life afforded him such extremes of responsibility.

And Kagome would not be satisfied with that kind of life, either, he felt certain.

“Your human can rise to meet you, Sesshoumaru.” Bokusenou paused. “Even among those of our kind, I have yet to meet a one as aptly suited to you in temperament, and, if she can complete the task set before her, in power.”

An amused breath escaped through his nose. “So you approve, then.”

“What need have you of my approval?” Bokusenou’s smile was sly.

Sesshoumaru shook his head, amusement still writ clearly in the tilt of his lips as he pivoted on his foot and made his exit.

-+-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder, I am not a man, nor do I have a penis. If there’s anything you can think of to improve the male-pov smut, please let me know!
> 
> This was a long chapter, and it’s not even all of Act III. The whole act, which was one chapter initially, was 43 pages long. The final chapter/part will be around 20 pages long! I had a lot of material to cover, y’all.
> 
> I’m a little sad nobody has played the poetry game so far. If you’re curious about the previous tanka and their relevance to the story, let me know and I’ll include explanations next week.
> 
> For this last act, the chosen tanka is again an allusion to another poem, which refers to the blossoms as a consolation for the writer’s forlorn state. This one turns the original on its head, with the yearning of the last line. Having someone to show it to would bring its own consolation. I think that’s pretty clear in how it relates to the chapter. Sesshoumaru has made his choice, and now all he wants is to let the world know~ Ahh, love.
> 
> **The FINAL chapter will be available to read on Sunday, October 6th!**


	6. Act III Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are... the final chapter.

-+-

**Shikizaki : An Omikuji Variation**

Act III Part II

-+-

Here in my cottage

I forget

my loneliness,

thanks to the blossoms—

only to find myself waiting

for someone

to show them to.

-+-

Though things proceeded with a renewed sense of harmony between Kagome and him after this trip, he perceived an edge of tension coming from Kagome that he found himself at a loss to ascribe a cause to. Kagome, as per her wont, could not keep whatever secret concerns were bubbling within her to herself for very long.

Something for which he should be grateful, he supposed, as she did not allow wounds to fester until they became irreparable. Nevertheless, when she said, “we should probably talk through some things together,” voice a little choked and trepidation shining in her eyes, Sesshoumaru felt the instinctual response of anxiety rise within him at the words.

But he relented.

She looked down at their hands, then back up at him. Neither moved or spoke. “About us, I mean,” she clarified.

Well—of course. What else could she have meant? Concerns of a less personal nature would not be preceded by so ominous an announcement. “That was my assumption.”

This answer seemed to put her out. “Okay.”

She chewed her lips.

Her fingers fidgeted on the kitchen counter. Sesshoumaru, hoping to offer some support, leaned forwards and wrapped his hand around hers. Her lips firmed, then relaxed. Had he misread her?

“Are you happy with the way things are?” she eventually ventured. 

This did not bode well. Laden in those words came the reminder that human hearts were changeable, fickle even, and a sudden fear gripped him that while he delved deeper and deeper into the connection they fostered between them, she might actually now be trying to pull away. Striving to remain neutral in the face of this conclusion, he spoke. “In asking me this, I infer you are not.”

She frowned. “That’s a non-answer, Sesshoumaru.”

True enough.

“But correct nonetheless?” He could not keep the chill from his voice, already preparing himself to guard his heart from her, should she try and rip it out.

But she tilted her head, brows furrowed in confusion. “I…” she sighed, fingers tightening a little around his. “I am happy about my choice in partner. I’m unhappy with some of the circumstances around us. I think there are things we could be doing better at, as a couple.” As the words flowed from her mouth, Sesshoumaru relaxed a little; she did not have _one of those_ conversations in mind, then. “What about you?”

He blinked. “I too am content with my chosen partner, and discontented by surrounding circumstance.” Specifically, he referred to her persistent ailment.

“Okay,” she acknowledged. He reached for his wine; she did the same. “How about we talk about some of those circumstances.”

His hand slowly unraveled from hers. “Perhaps the couch might be more comfortable,” he offered before she could take offense at his release of her hand. She trailed after him to the living room, carting along her wine, expression pensive.

After some nonsense about taking turns naming their grievances, she began. “I don’t always understand your motivations for doing things…” she reminded him of his verbal reassurance of his affections, in the car, after the last remaining reiki disappeared. “That’s only the second time you’ve talked about your feelings about me.”

This struck him as odd. He tilted his head, trying to puzzle out her meaning. “Do you require a greater frequency?”

“If you don’t tell me, I won’t know,” she said slowly, as though explaining something to a child, but the confusion in her eyes set him a little at ease.

“So demonstrations are insufficient,” he replied, just as slowly, brow drawn, puzzling. A simple matter of misunderstanding one another. Easily resolved. “You require verbal reinforcement.”

Kagome blinked. “Demonstrations?”

Sesshoumaru drew himself up beside her, looking into her face, taking in her matching puzzled countenance. “I have claimed you as mine repeatedly before others,” he started, and watching her eyebrows climb, narrowed his gaze. The appalling thought that she did not _know_—but the feeling eased as he realized that this would at least explain the lack of demonstrations on her side, something which he had acknowledged peripherally and concertedly not allowed to bother him. “Your tutor, Ikami… your physician… Bokusenou…?” he offered, wondering if she would recognize the instances when in context. When she merely blinked again, he sat back, at a loss.

So she had not known.

A disappointment and a relief all at once.

“So…” Kagome reached out, putting her hand on his knee, a gesture of appeasement. “Maybe I took it for granted that you knew about how humans date.”

“What need would one such as I have had to note human courtship rituals?” he almost spat. The very notion.

“Not made note of, but like, inadvertently learned about. Through osmosis. Since you’re surrounded by us.” His lips firmed in a moue of displeasure. “I guess I underestimated how below your notice humanity really is.” A pause. “I think it’s also fair to say that I probably should have done more to learn about how youkai go about things, too.”

At this concession, his affront dissipated. They had been at cross purposes, expected understanding from the other without offering it from themselves first. Again, easily remedied.

“When humans are in love, we say so. It’s kind of a big deal,” she added with levity.

A big deal, indeed? This set his lightening mood spiraling back into the dark. She had said nothing of the kind. No demonstrations as youkai would perform, and no declarations to conform to the human custom either.

Perhaps she meant this to be one of _those_ discussions after all.

For her part, Kagome seemed flabbergasted when he stiffened beside her. “And youkai?”

“Demonstrations.” His voice curt, he avoided her gaze. He steeled his heart.

“Did I say something…?” she leaned forward, tried to catch his gaze.

His lips tightened. “No.” When he turned to look at her, she appeared to him a stranger. Had he taken the supposition of her affections for granted—had he been so easily misled about her regard, so deeply entrenched was he in the warmth within him at the mere sight of her? “You have said _nothing at all_.”

“Oh.” Her face opened up suddenly, the lines of tension melting away. Her fingers reached out, touching his leg lightly, and her voice a little questioning, she spoke. “Sesshoumaru, _I_ _love you_.”

All at once, the spiraling anger and self-disgust melted into nothingness.

A miscommunication, easily remedied.

His hand covered hers where it lay on his knee. “Hn,” he said, eyes flickering away from her, a little smile playing on his lips. They basked in the happiness of the moment in silence, connected by the touch of their hands, the synchronicity of their breathing. But this conversation had yet to draw to a close, and he determinedly press forward. “Were there other concerns you wanted to address?”

She hesitated, obviously debating holding something back. “We—we haven’t… you know, _been_ _intimate_ in months…?” She trailed off, a wild desperation in her eyes as she expected him to fill in the blanks.

Truthfully this had been a source of, if not dissatisfaction, at least concern for him as well. He dipped his chin in acknowledgement. “You had been grieving,” he explained. Suddenly, he found himself avoiding her gaze. “Subsequently, I felt it would be too much of a distraction.”

“A distraction?”

“Indeed.” Sesshoumaru, when a specific goal stood before him, strove directly for his resolution. It had always been thus. His masters taught him that single-mindedness would serve him well. Distraction, especially by something as lowly as physical desire, should be reviled. “You have lacked focus in the tasks Bokusenou set before you, since our return.”

“Oh.” He squeezed her hand in reassurance, hearing the discomfiture in her voice. “Right.” When he continued to stare at her, she added, “I’ll get on that, then.”

Their first attempts were through meditation. This proved remarkably ineffective.

Kagome’s meditation practice lacked nothing; rather, meditation on its own yielded no results. So thoroughly disconnected was she from the well of her power that no matter how deeply she sunk into her own mind, even the slightest flicker of reiki seemed to elude her. She voiced her enormous dissatisfaction with her progress in this avenue regularly, and though he did not join in the chorus, Sesshoumaru felt equally as unhappy.

Resuming their amorous activities, though it did nothing for her progress, at least put them both in a better frame of mind.

He would not allow a solution to elude him for long. He thought back to his days as a young pup, the remote history of coming into his own power. Here, he found an answer. Or at least, the possibility of one. The key had always been tying his strength to physicality, to action, which led to a greater ease and control. Perhaps this might help Kagome as well. Reiki, a lively thing, behaved much like its demonic counterpart.

When the October air blew crisp and cool, with a little subterfuge, he absconded with Kagome, heading toward the small piece of land where he sequestered himself in training for so many years in his youth. At first, his plans for her were vague. A bow and arrow, traditional weapons of Miko for centuries, figured into them but without any particular object in mind; just as tools to bring her meditation into motion.

He would start there, and see how it worked for her.

The more he reflected on this plan, though, the more convinced he became that Kagome would likely not succeed via archery practice alone. His mind continuously cycled back to the moment preceding her death; the visceral reaction that drew that incredible force from her and sent Naraku close to his end. Intellect and conscious control were what closed her off to her powers. It would take instinct to overcome those barriers.

Seeing her with a bow in her hands only reinforced his conclusions. Though she painted a beautiful picture, limbs taught and bow drawn, the lines of her body as fluid and strong as a seasoned archer’s, she remained too far into her own head. Too cerebral.

The plan that marinated in his subconscious, as he watched her loose an arrow, would likely not go over well. And yet, what else could he offer her?

They wrapped up for the day, Kagome examining her hands closely, thumbs worrying over the hotspots on her palms. Looking up at him, her face colored with concern. “Is something wrong?”

Realizing his frown, Sesshoumaru smoothed his face before brushing a knuckle against her cheek in a tender gesture. Eyes narrowed slightly as he studied her. Would she forgive him for what he planned to do? “You know I would never hurt you.”

“I know that,” she replied, but suspicion took the conviction from her voice. Perhaps his reassurance had been too obvious in its implications.

“Causing harm does not come naturally to you,” he continued, “you are kind-hearted.” A breeze batted against them, causing the fine hairs on Kagome’s arms to rise as she shivered. “I expect that if we are to succeed, you must overcome that reservation.”

He could say no more to prepare her than this, but he knew that even this warning would prove insufficient. If nothing else, she must trust that he would never willingly harm her; she must trust _him_. He fancied that she did.

_But you must convince her otherwise, or this plan will fail. _

He gave her a morning off to allow her time to rejuvenate, with the task of finding him in the afternoon. “You will find me. Of that, I have no doubt.” He slid the door closed behind him, and wandered out into the garden.

Once far enough away from the compound, he changed forms. He must show her something that would strike the fear into her—trigger a fight or flight response. But there would be no fleeing from him.

In this shape, she would seem like an ant underfoot. Even knowing the multiplicity of scents that would assault his nose at that height and size, he remained sure of his ability to sniff her out at once. He knew her scent so intimately at this point, had carved it so deeply into his memory and his mind, that he held no doubts on that score.

When at last the wind carried the soft, warm fragrance of her skin, Sesshoumaru turned his great head in the direction of the compound. There she walked, emerging from the wood, outfitted and equipped as he bid her, and just on time.

He bared his fangs, red eyes narrowing as they closed in on their target.

Kagome took slow step back, fingers reaching for her bow. _Ah_. So she recognized him, but knew well enough to protect herself, no matter how inexperienced with the weapon in her hands.

He curled his lip and released a low rumbling growl, loud enough to shake the leaves of the trees around her. When he stepped toward her, the earth pitched and rumbled below, knocking her off her balance and sending her tumbling to the forest floor.

Her gaze disconnected from his figure and he changed forms once more, into his humanoid shape. Jetting through the wood with her scent in his nose, he made his silent approach.

The sound of a twig snapping under her foot alerted him that she was close. He loosed his youki, pressing _fear_ forward toward her for the first time. He had never stooped to such intimidation tactics before, but the massive wall of his energy would have _some_ effect on her, even if she could not see it.

When he broke through the treeline, she stood, frozen in place, eyes dilating in fear, hair on end, breath spurting from her mouth in panic. Even thus beholden to her fear, she found the strength to raise her bow.

“Sesshoumaru…?” Her voice a shaky whisper on the wind.

Sesshoumaru raised his chin a fraction, and, nostrils flaring, scented the air. He fixed his gaze over her chest. It beat a frenzied rhythm; a beautiful song of life. His mind flashed back to the moment Naraku’s claws had torn their way through flesh and bone, ready to excise the organ from her flesh.

“Sesshoumaru,” she tried again, voice a little stronger, demanding his attention.

In answer, a deep growl.

“Oh,” she gasped. He would not stop until he saw this through. She took a step back. Knuckles white in their grip on the bow, skin shining with the sweat of her fear, she turned to run.

But though he gave her a head-start, he would not allow her to flee him. It took less than five seconds to catch up with her, stopping her escape with a hand tugging on the back of her haori. She dropped the bow, flew through the air like a rag-doll, tumbling over herself onto the packed dirt and pine needles covering the forest floor.

A gasp from her mouth and he loomed over her again, baring teeth, markings jagged with madness, violence on his mind. He gripped her collar and hauled her upright.

“Sesshoumaru,” she pleaded, lips trembling.

If he could only kiss them in reassurance. Instead, his free hand came up, fingers curled, tips of his claws dripping green, caustic.

“Stop,” she begged, eyes riveted on his face.

He pulled his hand back, preparing to strike. Naraku’s hand blinked before his eyes once more. Would she forgive him?

Her hands gripped at his, fingers trying to pry his hold loose, eyes screwed shut in terror the whole time. A ragged breath inward, and her eyes opened reflexively as he jostled her.

His body tensed as though in preparation to strike.

And then the dam burst.

A wash of pink reiki rocketed through her, exploding from her hands with enough force to throw him off her and across the clearing.

Kagome toppled backwards. Sesshoumaru did as well, markings smoothing on his cheeks, a pleased and gentle smile curving his lips as he allowed himself to fall.

Her body collided against a tree behind her, head knocking against the trunk. She called his name once on a groan, and then lost consciousness.

Sesshoumaru righted himself, noting the continued pink glow around her, even as she lay insensate over the sprawling roots. When he reached out to pick her up, the electric scent of ozone flooded his nose, and his fingers sizzled under her power. Her energy would not mark him as friend, not after what he had done.

Heedless of this transient pain, he plucked her from the floor and with reverent steps carried his treasured cargo back to the promising warmth of their futon.

When she woke, she was once more the Kagome he had known; the one he had come to love.

She roused slowly, a long stretch of her body, arms reaching over her head, as though waking from a lovely dream rather than returning to consciousness after fighting for her life. What a delightful innocence, that she should know he was present beside her, feel the presence of his youki, and not feel a sense of danger. Perhaps the Miko aversion to youki came from education and indoctrination, rather than from an innate sense of disgust.

To test his theory, he pressed his power toward her, running a tendril of it up along her leg.

He found the way the goosebumps rose along her flesh delightful, especially as it came in conjunction with a low murmur of pleasure and hand reaching to find his arm. He allowed her to hold him as he ran his hand up the side of her leg, rucking her yukata up over her hip and then trailing his fingers back down to her knee.

“Sesshoumaru,” she groaned, eyes opening, luminous in the lowering light.

“Kagome.” He reached up to her face, trailing his knuckles along the side of her cheek in a gentle caress.

“What are you doing?” she asked, though the glimmer of mischief in her smile told him that she knew well enough the answer to that question.

He cupped her cheek and leaned in, brushing his lips against hers. “Admiring how you look in that lovely rose glow.” A truth, but not a whole truth. Her skin shined with health, vibrant, blushing from warmth and rising excitement, and the soft rosy bloom of her spiritual powers flattered that vibrancy.

She kissed him back, hand drifting up his arm to grip his shoulder under her sleeve. “Is _that_ all?” Power concentrated in her fingertips, sizzled against his skin, sparking off his youki.

“Hn.” His lips migrated from hers to the line of her jaw, the tender spot on her neck like a magnet for his nose. He pressed it to her skin and breathed in deeply of her scent. _Ah_. She smelled like herself. The zest of reiki layered on top of the sweetness of her skin, the lingering floral notes of her shampoo. He pressed a kiss there, then tucked his nose back against her neck. Now, with the addition of his scent, she smelled _perfect_.

She sighed, looping her arm around his neck. “What if that’s not enough for me?” she asked, still coy, though her voice came out breathier for her excitement.

“Ah, but this is all I plan on giving,” he murmured, wrapping arms around her and bring her body to his.

“I’m going to have to take what I want, aren’t I?” she asked, and didn’t wait for him to answer before pushing him over onto his back. He sank into the futon, hand still on her leg as she swung it over to straddle him.

“You bring me to my knees,” he sighed as she nuzzled into his neck, imitating his earlier caress.

“To your back,” she whispered, the music of her laugh in her voice.

“Yes,” he agreed. “That’s right. I bring _you_ to your knees,” he said, and Kagome, kneeling astride him, laughed aloud this time.

He parted the front panels of her yukata and pulled the fabric away from her skin. “Sesshoumaru,” Kagome warned, “this is a good pair!”

That had never stopped him before. She knew this. So, it was without mercy that he elongated his nails and tore through the fabric on either side, grabbing the scraps and ripping them from her body. Despite her initial protests, when he cupped his hand over her sex, Kagome seemed to forget all about the good pair of panties.

Her hands were scrabbling to open the front of his yukata, to pull his unclothed phallus from within it. She took him in hand and squeezed tightly once, before floating herself over him, touching his quivering cockhead to her, rubbing him along her cleft.

She was not quite wet enough yet, her excitement still new.

One hand stayed on her hips to steady her, fingers splaying to sink into the cushion of her backside, the other tugged the yukata over her shoulder, traced her exposed collarbones, down her sternum to her navel, and then back up. His fingers ghosted a circle around her nipples, which tightened in response to the stimulation. She released a little sigh of pleasure, continuing her ministrations below.

The friction tantalized, but he focused instead on the little hitches of her breath, the soft sighs and gentle moans he drew from her with the soft tweaks and pinches of her nipples, the rocking of her hip in his other hand.

She pressed his hardness against his belly and rubbed wantonly against it, her increasing moisture smoothing the passage, then righted herself again to grip him in her hand and begin a slow, rhythmic pumping of his shaft. He groaned, tensing his thighs, tipped his head back into the futon, burrowing his face in one of the pillows.

Kagome leaned over once more and peppered his cheek with kisses before taking the tip of his ear between her teeth. The points of his ears fascinated her—a good thing, given that they were sensitive, and she loved to play with them. She tongued over the responsive skin, released a warm breath against it, and then blew a cool one right after.

He groaned, delighting in this sweet torture, in the ease and familiarity she had with all his most sensitive places. With one more nibble, she released him, straightening, and pressed her most intimate place urgently against him.

A soft “ah,” from her pouty, glistening licks, and she lowered herself onto him, the tight heat of her encasing him, pulling him inside.

His grip on her hips, now on both sides, tightened, and he encouraged the gentle back-and-forth rocking, her plush bottom kneading against his balls with each backward slide of her pelvis. One of her hands snuck down to self-stimulate, and he immediately fixated on the vision of her slender fingers, teasing herself into a frenzy.

No longer content to be the passenger to her pleasure, he pushed himself up onto his elbows and then repositioned them so that he leaned against the headboard of the futon, Kagome grinding against his lap. He took one of her breasts between his lips, teased its tightened bud with his tongue, applied a gentle suction.

Kagome, writhing above him, groaned low in her throat, an animalistic sound. One he matched when, using his newfound leverage, he rose to meet her halfway, the impact of flesh on flesh louder and more urgent than before. She gripped him tighter, her slickened passage pulsing with heat, already winding up to fall over the edge. The tension in his sac, abdomen, and thighs increased in tandem with her heightening pleasure.

“Sesshoumaru,” she whispered, dropping her head forward onto his shoulder.

He grunted in response.

“You’re welcome,” she teased, and released a wave of reiki, snapping and sparking all around him.

The force of her power, the tantalizing pain it induced, draw his balls up. He gasped, trying to hold himself back, when she ground down upon him and tightened up around him, vicelike and urgent. The aftershocks of her orgasm threw him into his own. He did not ease the pressure of his hands on her hips, moving her over him, savoring in the sensation of her body pulling every last bit of pleasure from him that it could.

_My Kagome has returned to me, yet again_, he marveled, watching the sated smile spread over her lovely kiss-reddened lips. He could still feel the residual sting of her reiki.

Hand still guiding her movement, he felt his member stiffening again with her. Kagome gasped, lashes fluttering as she sought to meet his gaze. Sesshoumaru allowed himself a smile, one with teeth, as he pressed his pelvis up into hers once more, shifting their bodies, and putting her on her back.

“Thank you,” he breathed into her neck, pulling out and taking himself in hand to tease them both, rubbing the engorged head of his cock against her labia. When some of their combined release threatened to venture out, he pressed forward, just enough to push it back into her opening, to keep it where it belonged.

Kagome shivered, wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. They kissed, and kissed, and Sesshoumaru continued the slow, gentle friction between them the entire time. Her breasts pressed against his chest, skin tacky from their previous exertion. Most lovely of all, her aroma ripe with clean sweat and pleasure, the tart-sweet notes of her come, all perfectly accentuated by the addition of his own scent.

When at last he penetrated her, they both groaned, foreheads touching now instead of lips. He began a steady pace, thrusting within her, hiking one of her legs up on his hip to give him a better angle. Every few thrusts he would bottom out inside her, hold himself there, grind against her. Her legs around him trembled, her moans grew uncontrolled, and he spurred her onwards with the gentle nibbles on her neck, the pad of his thumb sneaking between them to tap against her sensitized clit.

“Sesshoumaru—I’m gonna—”

He knew. He knew, and he wanted her to. He did not cease in his ministrations, only increased his pace. Skin slapped against skin; he gritted his teeth to stave off his own climax, and when he rolled her clit with his thumb, she succumbed to hers.

When she came down from her high, panting and sighing beneath him, he pulled away, lowering her legs onto the futon, and straddled her prone body, holding himself above her.

He gripped his cock hard, hand stationary, movements still driven by his hips, periodically closing his fingers about the head and squeezing. His eyes did not stray from the fascinated expression on her face as she rose on her elbows to watch him, and the intensity of her gaze spurred him onward. Her lips parted to reveal her tongue, and his pace stuttered.

Fingers loosened for just a moment, to draw him back from the brink. At the soft ‘ah’ that left Kagome’s mouth, he grasped himself with renewed vigor, stilling his body and pumping with his hand, quadriceps clenched, heat swirling in his groin. With his free hand he grabbed at Kagome’s ankle and yanked her leg forward and up, tilting her hips upward to receive him. The pistoning of his hand around his slickened cock rubbed the sensitive head against her folds, and with a low grunt—

He came, spurting his release at her opening, pressing forward slightly with his hips to push the pearly beads of come inside of her, then pulling back out and doing it all over again. Kagome groaned, fingers coming down to part her labia and ease his entrance, cheeks flushed and eyes wide, fixed on him as though seeing a light from heaven.

Sesshoumaru collapsed over her, and they found rest in each other’s arms.

They departed not hours later, and once on the road again, they had no more time to revel in sentiment. Not now that the end of their mission hovered so close. The return of her powers meant that Kagome spent increasing amounts of time sequestered from him in training. She reported progress, but overall dissatisfaction at her success. It wasn’t until she chose to leave the Shikon no Tama in his possession that she broke the imagined limitation her mind placed upon her.

She had convinced herself that the source of all that phenomenal power lay exclusively in the Shikon no Tama. Without it around her neck, she overcame that barrier with surprisingly little effort.

Winter settled heavy in the air when they finally returned to Bokusenou, the purification of the jewel their goal.

The Magnolia tree greeted them with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, the corners crinkling up in a smile. “Ah,” he intoned, “once more, the cherries in full bloom bring those who never visit, calling at my door.”

“Hello, Bokusenou-sama. It’s been a while,” Kagome greeted, bowing lowly and correctly.

Sesshoumaru limited himself to a grunt.

“Do you come to me with a solution, committed to absolutely?”

“We do,” Kagome replied, glancing at Sesshoumaru.

“Hmmm,” Bokusenou acknowledged. “And what is your solution?”

“Reciprocal action,” Kagome stated. “I will purify it first, and then we—” again she glanced at Sesshoumaru, and he gifted her with a nod of approval, “will neutralize it. Two forces within, two forces without.”

The wood of his trunk creaked as Bokusenou turned his face toward Sesshoumaru. “Will she be able to match you, Sesshoumaru?”

“I have the utmost faith in her abilities.” He tried not to appear smug as he spoke the words. But Bokusenou’s prediction all those weeks before rang in his ears: Kagome would be able to rise to meet him.

She absolutely would.

“And what role am I to play?” the Magnolia tree asked.

“If we should fail,” Sesshoumaru murmured, “I hope for you to suffer the same fate.”

Bokusenou’s laugh was explosive; it faded into chuckles that lasted for several minutes, his eyes squinted closed with the force of his mirth. “You were always and impudent pup,” he remarked, once he returned to his usual self-possession.

Kagome set to work without delay. Resplendent in the light of purification that poured forth from her fingers, welling into her cupped hands, she appeared like a vision out of his dreams. Her skin flawless and smooth, her blue eyes like mirrors in the light, hair billowing around her, rising on the currents of her power as it flowed about her in waves.

He murmured her name thoughtlessly, the reverberation of his voice in the clearing surprising him. Kagome glanced at him before taking one tentative step, then another, toward her target. Now having spoken, he supposed he should share his reflections. “You are moving smoothly and slowly, carrying your concentration like a brimming cup,” Sesshoumaru observed.

She glanced over at him with a rueful grin before returning her attention to her hands, near overflowing with her power. “I’m contemplating eventualities,” she replied, before lowering herself to her knees before the pedestal. 

An interesting answer; one that invoked a multitude of questions. Such a curious creature.

Slowly, she moved her hands over the jewel, and once it sat centered below her palms where they touched, she opened the bowl from the bottom. The vital pink of her reiki descended in an orb of iridescent light.

White light, brilliant and blinding, washed the clearing, rendering him momentarily blind. His sight returned to him just in time to see a current of snowflakes rising from the ground around her, swirling and spiraling up toward the heavens.

All eyes were riveted on the wooden box and the bauble lying in pride of place within it.

“_Oh_…” Kagome sighed, “do you think it’ll do?” she asked. He said nothing. “Sesshoumaru? What’s wrong?”

He squeezed his eyes to block out the softly glowing orb, a brilliant pink, as though lit from the inside, then shook his head, shaking off the wailing cry that emanated from within. It rattled in his ears, a pure tone, warbling its siren call intermittently. “Its voice is rather loud,” he eyed Bokusenou, who still peered silently at the stone. The tree only nodded.

While certainly beautiful, the oddly haunting song filled him with derision. Beautiful, but false. _This_ was what Inuyasha had fought to obtain? What had impelled Naraku to murder Kagome over? It spoke of strength, of limitless power; _false_ strength, _borrowed_ power. His stomach turned. Pivoting to regard Kagome, he spoke. “Are you ready?”

She nodded, wiping sweaty palms over the silk fabric of her kimono.

“Kagome,” Sesshoumaru called to her, eyes meeting with hers over the pulsing pink Jewel. She gave a weak smile in reply. “You will succeed,” he said, gaze intent on her face, lips firm with his conviction.

She rose to the challenge. The more youki he threw at her, the more reiki rose forth in return. Two waves crashing head on, the power caused sparks to rise in the air. His skin heated, his jaw clenched with the effort. When had he last needed to exert himself like this? Even in his battle against Naraku he had not drawn on a fraction as much power.

And then, when the waves reached their peak, cresting against one another, he called her name over the shrieking of the cursed jewel. The time had come.

One final push, and the clearing washed out from view, a searing brightness exploding from where the two powers converged.

A deafening snap, and youki and reiki fizzled into nothingness.

Silence followed.

Kagome lost her footing.

Sesshoumaru, finding her via scent while his vision recovered, helped her to her feet.

As one, their eyes directed to the Shikon no Tama. It lay within its wooden box, reflecting the cloud-cover and glowing an odd shade of silver.

Kagome leaned down and plucked the stone from its container. “Did it—” she began, but her voice faded out as she felt the bauble warm in her hand. It rolled to and fro on her palm as she brought it closer to her face, but quite suddenly its rolling slowed, the surface of the stone now tacky, sticking to her skin.

“What…?”

The glowing silver bead began melting, like chocolate on a hot day, forming a quicksilver pool in her now cupped hands. It warbled, one last dying wail; a wretched sound, true to the false promises held in its song. And then all fell silent, as the pool bubbled once and stilled.

Sesshoumaru’s brow quizzed. This defied his expectations. He’d expected it to simply vanish.

Kagome let out a little mewl of pain, a grimace etching onto her face.

“Kagome…?” The reddening on her face, the sudden sweat beading anew on her brow sent him into a panic. He grabbed her wrist, hauling her to him.

Thrown off balance, her hands clapped together as she toppled into his arms.

“No!” She cried, pulling her palms apart and examining them desperately, muttering below her breath about not wanting to spill a single drop.

But when they parted, there remained no more Shikon no Tama, puddled up or otherwise. Instead, where the quicksilver pool had been, her palms were stained a reflective silver. It absorbed into her skin in the space of a heartbeat, the blistering heat it emanated disappearing along with the stains.

Sesshoumaru blinked. Grip still firm on her wrist, he lowered his nose and breathed in deep.

Nothing.

The scent of her skin, her sweat, the lingering ozone in the air. But no more cloying sweetness.

The Shikon no Tama was gone.

-+-

One would think that with the success of their mission, the removal of the blighted jewel from existence, they could rest easy, together, and bask in the glory of their accomplishments. Certainly he had not done anything in pursuit of recognition from others, but he would have liked to enjoy the moment together with her. He had succeeded where so many others had failed. Had surpassed Inuyasha (though this brought no surprise) as well as the demon contained within the Jewel, and Kagome had bested even Midoriko’s legendary power, dissolving her into dust.

She rose to meet him.

Every day, he marveled at this fact. In a world where no other had, youkai or otherwise, Kagome alone could stand beside him an equal.

But despite his desires—and hers—the majority of the days that followed were spent apart. There were a few pockets where he found time to sneak away from his work and spend at her side, “refilling his Kagome reserves,” as she teasingly called it.

The more he reflected on the matter, the more he realized it to be true. The moment he could find his way to her side again, he would be there. He found himself wishing to cut corners, to drop his work, let the bickering kitsune and bear tribe do what they pleased; and all so he could take his place beside her. What an amazing discovery—that the prospect of time apart from her chafed; that the idea of spending whatever remained of her days on earth together appealed beyond any other enticement.

Without his realizing it, her presence had become a necessity in his life. No longer could he think of their relationship as a one-sided affair, where he took part in hers yet she did not touch his; in fact, this idea filled him with shame. Had he truly thought it would be possible to delineate things in so tidy, so sterile a fashion?

Kagome had surpassed all of his expectations. Every time he thought he knew what shape she held in his life, she continued to evolve. A mere curiosity, fleeting affair, a desirable but disposable companion… and now, more than all of those, someone whose presence became integral to his ongoing happiness. Perhaps there were others out there more beautiful, or more intelligent, or kinder or more accepting. But there existed nobody of his acquaintance, across the millennia that he had lived, who embodied all of those traits at once and to so superior a degree.

He could, ostensibly, continue as they started. But casual companionship, such a modern concept, had always been conducted in secret in the days of his youth. No longer could he abide the prospect of remaining casual companions. He could not further dishonor her in this way. And so, though it pained him to remain apart from her for longer than originally planned, he would delay his return home.

He must have a word with his mother, and alert her as to his intentions. She would likely protest, but as Bokusenou’s blessing had already been bestowed—not in so many words, but implicitly at least—his mother’s displeasure would be no barrier.

A text message alert distracted his careful attention to his planning. Tanaka’s name popped up on the screen, and anxiety squeezed in his belly. Sesshoumaru’s instructions upon leaving were that Tanaka should keep an eye on Kagome and alert him with anything of significance. He had not expected to actually hear anything from the pup, but wasn’t Kagome always getting herself into some kind of trouble or another?

_Higurashi-sama has stopped by for a visit_, read his message, and the implications within those seven words warmed Sesshoumaru’s chest. She must miss him.

Moments later, Kagome texted him too. _Do you think you’ll make it back for Christmas?_

_Christmas_, he thought. _As good a deadline as any_. The omikuji fortune burning a hole in in his office desk drawer, commanded that his business be concluded by the end of the year at the latest. Christmas would give him a little leeway to work with.

_I’ll find a way,_ he replied, and immediately set about making an appointment to meet with his mother.

“A visit so soon, Sesshoumaru? Did we not meet just this past Spring?” She sat upon the dais in the Great Hall of her palace, entirely unaffected by his arrival.

“This is not a social call, Mother,” he informed her, stopping several feet before the dais.

“It never is, though, is it? You are the prince of the duty visits; you break your mother’s heart.” A little toss of her head sent her white hair cascading over her back. She pursed her rouged lips thoughtfully and tipped her chin as she studied her son. “I delegated the mediation of the kitsune tribe’s squabble with the bear clan to you for a reason, Sesshoumaru. I will not intercede in that affair again—you must make yourself useful to me in _some_ way, or I shall have to create another heir for when my time comes.”

This, a laughable idea. Nobody in their right mind would desire to beget offspring with his mother in this day and age; and even if she took what she needed to conceive by force or manipulation, Sesshoumaru would never be bested by the child of that unfortunate coupling. She knew anyway, that his good graces were the only thing keeping her in her seat of power; if he desired her position, he could very easily take it by force.

“I have no intention of discussing that, Mother. It has been handled to both sides’ satisfaction.”

“Well. Then what business is dire enough to bring you to see me again so soon, Sesshoumaru?”

Were he a lesser man, the sudden chill in her voice and the remoteness of her expression would be enough to deter him from speaking; but he had been inured to her little manipulations from millennia of exposure. He would not be cowed by the threat of her displeasure. Indeed; his errand was of far too great importance.

“I have chosen a mate.”

An intense satisfaction rose up in his chest the moment the words left his lips. He had not given himself leave to use those words, even in his innermost reflections; they were far too powerful. He had used ‘marriage’ the one time he had put a name to his intentions, and as human construct it meant little to him. Deep down, though, he knew what label his heart wanted to use.

The little smile playing about his lips faded when his Mother’s eyes narrowed, not partaking equally of his joy. “And this is the first I am hearing of whatever paragon has caught your eye?” She paused, tapping her chin in a farce of thoughtfulness. “Ah, no. I do recall mention _through the grapevine_ of your gallivanting about in the company of a mere human. Perhaps it is her, to whom you refer?”

Sesshoumaru would hardly call what they had been doing ‘gallivanting’, but decided to let that slide. “Your informants—” he almost called them spies, but censored himself again in time for her to interrupt.

“I had hoped this tryst to be a mere flight of fancy, but I should have known better than to attribute _whimsy_ to you. What are you _thinking_, Sesshoumaru?”

“—are ever astute,” he continued, undaunted. “And yet their intelligence this time appears lacking. A _mere_ human? Do you truly believe I could ever stoop so low?” Never mind that he had committed himself to her thinking it possible that she might never regain her spiritual powers. His mother need not know that.

But his words caught her attention. She tilted her head in question, eyes narrowing, doubtless attempting to unspool his insinuation that Kagome could be something _more_. When at last she gave up trying to read his meaning, she waved a hand in the air. “If not that, then what is she?”

The smugness leaked out into his voice, into the twist of his lips, the cocking of his brow. “A Miko.” At his Mother’s flabbergasted intake of breath, the reddening and then purpling of her cheeks—for indeed, ‘Miko’ had meant nothing at all for over a century at least—he decided to continue. “A Miko endowed with incredible powers—enough to purify and subsequently destroy the Shikon no Tama.”

Shock sent his mother’s brows rocketing up into her hairline, obscured by her bangs. Her posture lost some of the tension it gathered at his amazing declaration, though the remaining stiffness indicated her lack of faith in his assertions. “You’re certain she did not merely _lose_ it, Sesshoumaru?”

He scoffed. “Indeed not. The deed was performed before and witnessed by the Great Bokusenou, in the span of an afternoon.”

She released a considering hum in response, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “To destroy the Shikon no Tama would require a power greater than that of Midoriko’s,” she murmured.

_And a youkai with power greater than that of the dragon demon fighting with her within,_ he added silently, giving credit where it was due, but feeling no need to mention his participation in the act.

Both sat in silence, privy to their own thoughts, before she stood and dismissed him. “I need to think on this. You will remain, Sesshoumaru, until I call for you in the morning. Do not make me wait.”

As he left the chamber, he heard his mother calling for Jaken.

He stifled a sigh. She had better call him early enough to undo whatever damage the little imp had planned. Jaken could be as troublesome as he was obsequious, and he had _that_ in spades.

She did not request his presence until the early afternoon.

“I have reflected on the matter at length.” She announced as he entered the Great Hall again after luncheon the next day. “I will not burden you with the entire extent of my reflections—”

“For which I am grateful,” he interrupted, shifting his weight imperceptibly. She would expect a comment from him along these lines, based on precedent. He would much rather remain silent so that she could finish faster and he could be on his way, but if she caught on to his eagerness to leave, she would drag this encounter on and on simply to torture him.

“Listen when your mother speaks,” she reprimanded idly, once more tapping her chin as though reliving her recent lengthy reflections. A little shake of the head, and she came back to the matter at hand. “You’ll be happy to hear that Bokusenou confirmed your account of this Higurashi woman’s skill.” Sesshoumaru frowned at the implication that would lie about such a monumental fact. “That she is a human is of course a blemish, Miko or no. Goodness knows that title is all but useless in these times. But that she holds _such_ power reduces the sting somewhat. I will tolerate this affair of yours, Sesshoumaru. She is human. By the time I remember to think of her next, she will be long dead.”

“Affair? Mother, I spoke quite clearly that—”

“Mate or affair, whichever. The fact remains. She is human. Not a concern for long.”

Perhaps she attributed his relationship with Kagome to a desire to see his mother discomfited. Usually, his mother had something of a soft spot for true lovers. Regardless, her misperception held no consequence. He had completed the task which brought him here to see her, and nothing else mattered. Time and exposure would show her that theirs was no trifling affair.

Though in another sense, time would eventually prove her right. Sesshoumaru would outlive Kagome by thousands upon thousands of human lifespans. But as long as Kagome remained a part of this world, he would have her by his side, and cherish every moment.

“As you say, Mother.” 

“You were overdue for a youthful indiscretion,” she tapped her fan to her shoulder, head tilting to the side thoughtfully. “I suppose I am grateful that a transient dalliance such as this is the shape that your rebellion takes.” 

He stared, waiting for her to finish. 

“Let this be the first and last time, Sesshoumaru.”

He inclined his head in a deferential gesture, and then took his leave. It would be Christmas in Japan by now; he had a promise to keep. But first, a few more stops. A human proposal necessitated certain paraphernalia, after all. And Christmas necessitated cake.

Wanting to surprise her, he pulled his youki in, approaching the door on silent feet. But the sounds coming from within her apartment—pouring tea, two bodies breathing—stayed his hand when he raised it to knock. “What brings you all this way?” Her sweet lilting voice, laden heavily with remorse for a reason he could not discern, asked of her visitor. Judging from the swampy smell slick with slime, Jaken was the intended recipient.

“I have been instructed to greet you on behalf of My Lady, and to extend an invitation to you to meet her in the New Year.”

“She wants to meet me?” A pause. “Is Sesshoumaru coming too?”

Jaken must have swallowed wrong. A series of coughs and choked out false starts followed, before he managed to screech, “Sesshoumaru? Did you just call him ‘Sesshoumaru’, you wretched— you—”

The imp ought to know better. The knob turned in his hand—he must remind her to keep the doors locked in his absence—and he entered without fanfare. “Enough, Jaken,”

Kagome’s radiant smile and greeting were lost in the commotion of Jaken launching himself from the table and folding over into a trembling puddle of prostration at Sesshoumaru’s feet, forehead pressed into the floor, tears streaming from his bulbous eyes. “Sesshoumaru-sama!” he cried, over and over, a reverence and obeisance in his tone to rival his posture.

_Ah yes_. Jaken had ever been like this. Toeing the imp out of his way so that he might at last greet Kagome properly, he demanded an explanation. Her skin warm and soft where his fingers trailed over the back of her neck, her pleasant scent, and the brilliance of her regard assuaged the hollow aching within him at the distance they had endured over the last several weeks. All business had been concluded satisfactorily for now.

Jaken was speaking, but Sesshoumaru’s attention had strayed to the lovely woman beside him. “What were Mother’s instructions?” he interrupted ruthlessly, much to the toad’s apparent pleasure.

He groveled, resuming his previous bow. “Sesshoumaru-sama, you know I cannot reveal—”

How insolent. “Jaken.”

Recoiling as though he’d been struck, Jaken scrambled back before pounding his forehead back into the floor. “She asked me to take the measure of the woman who has had the…” here, he raised his head to shoot a venomous look at Kagome, “the temerity—the, the… the _gall_ to stand at your side!” Again bowing low, his voice resumed its previous obsequious tones. “And to extend an invitation.”

Sesshoumaru’s lips twisted. “You will report back favorably,” he instructed, looking at his fingernails.

Some token protests. They both knew Jaken would comply.

“You will not disclose that I was present for this discussion, and you will report back favorably.” He had not so much as glanced up from his nails, and his free hand had drifted toward Kagome to settle on its preferred perch on her knee. Jaken’s eyes followed the movement as though magnetized, widening in horror with every progressive millimeter Sesshoumaru’s fingers neared her leg. When at last he touched down on her knee, Jaken turned a curious shade of green. Pretending to disregard all of this, while simultaneously vastly enjoying the entertainment, Sesshoumaru spoke on. “Kagome has tentatively accepted Mother’s invitation, though as she is a student and quite busy in her work, her compliance with any summons will be contingent on whether her prior obligations allow.”

“Sesshoumaru-sama—”

“Am I understood?”

Jaken bowed deeply and pledged his compliance.

“You are excused, Jaken.” It looked for a moment as though Jaken would protest, but one more sharp look from Sesshoumaru had the little green man scurrying for the door which slammed behind him as he left.

Kagome looked up at Sesshoumaru, barely suppressing a giggle, eyes squinting with mirth. “A little domineering of you,” she remarked, voice trembling with humor.

“He appears to rather like being dominated,” Sesshoumaru remarked, completely straight-faced, even when the comment sent Kagome into fits of laughter. “That was not a joke,” he offered eventually, eyes crinkling in fondness as he looked down at his lover, writhing on the floor in giggles.

Jaken had left little damage to undo after all, as Sesshoumaru had caught up with them before he could throw a wrench in the works. He toyed with the idea of leaving things as they lay and not raising the issue of visiting his mother, but Kagome deserved clarity. Not knowing seemed to be the biggest culprit in her anxieties.

Decided, he brought up the topic after they finished eating that evening. “I am pleased to be meeting your family again,” he commented, choosing his timing to coincide with a discussion of their upcoming visit to the Higurashi household for the New Year celebrations. “I cannot say that I am pleased that you will be meeting mine.”

Her face fell, she turned away from him.

Upon reflection, he worded that poorly. “My family will hold none of the appeal to you that yours does to me.” A careful audit of her facial expressions revealed a softening in the lines around her mouth, a hopeful tilt of her head toward him. “There is little affection in our house. Mother… Mother has little care for anyone that does not align with her plans, and even then only for as long as they do.”

“And I take it you aren’t aligning with them, by being with me?” Her hand reached out to touch his forearm. A positive sign. “It’s been mentioned that your house might be… a bit more traditional, or conservative? A relationship like ours is not what she planned for you, is it?”

He sighed, combing through his hair before laying his fingers over hers where she held his arm. “Indeed not. I have never followed the path she designed for me. I dislike being a pawn in her schemes, and that is all the use she has for her son.”

Kagome studied him before intoning, “It’s hard for me to imagine you letting anyone get away with trying to use you.”

This earned her a smile. “As indeed I do not. But my mother’s continued existence affords me some freedoms which I might not be able to afford if I were to ascend to her position.” He sighed. “The benefits of keeping her living outweigh those of killing her.”

She blinked, her hand spasming around his limb, and she swallowed hard. “Is… uh… _matricide_ common for youkai?”

“Common?” _Oh, she finds the idea repugnant_. “Our society is ruled by the powerful,” he explained. “Though Mother is formidable on her own, it is due to her association with me that she remains living. It is why my sire did not kill her when he took a human wife. It would not be _uncommon_ for an heir to a birthright to bring about their own ascension, if they find it in their power to remove their priors.”

This seemed to unsettle her.

In attempt to comfort her, he added, “but our lives are long; seldom are the presumptive heirs successful, against those with millennia’s worth of greater experience.”

“What happens when they fail to off their parents, then?”

Sesshoumaru blinked.

“Oh.” She tugged on the pink pearl pendant around her neck, his Christmas gift; a replacement for the Shikon no Tama that had endured the same fondling and pulling whenever she became anxious.

_Oh. _

“I guess filicide isn’t uncommon then either?”

Well, it wasn’t.

Faced with Kagome’s mother and Grandfather, staring at him silently across the table, after the youths had been excused from it—Souta leaving reluctantly and Kagome in a huff—proved far more intimidating than he had originally expected. Kagome valued their opinions. She cared for them. The grandfather had already thrown salt at him, attempting to exorcise him in his screeching voice when he found Sesshoumaru seated amongst the family earlier that afternoon. The mother seemed predisposed to be grateful to him, after services rendered during Kagome’s hospitalization, but he knew such a tentative feeling would dissipate immediately in the face of any affront.

As a result, he could not fail to impress and satisfy them. He wanted them on his side, after all.

Bowing low, he thanked them for opening their home to him, and taking the time to speak to him. Grandfather scoffed, Mother merely inclined her head politely.

“I seek your blessing. I wish to ask Kagome’s hand in marriage,” he said at length, perhaps more stiffly than intended.

Discounting the grandfather’s faint, her mother’s response at least had been favorable.

Though the slight of being kicked out of his own room to accommodate the guest likely stung, the brother would be an easy conquest. Souta, much like any other pup of his early years, was fascinated by weaponry. Sesshoumaru invited him to watch him go through his paces with the sword in the morning, and this small gesture alone set Souta’s dark eyes shining with adulation whenever he cast a glance in Sesshoumaru’s direction.

As he swung his blade in the winter morning air, breath steaming and Souta ogling, he found himself thinking that if he had ever worried that tying himself to a human would lead to the tedium of routine and domesticity, he had no need to worry. Kagome’s teasing him with her warmed, honeyed scent, tinged brightly with arousal immediately dispelled those concerns.

“Good morning, Sesshoumaru,” she teased, in pajamas and tattered robe, breath steaming in the air before her.

He sheathed his sword, retrieved his hankimono and draped it over his shoulders. “Good morning, Kagome,” he replied, stalking toward her, seduction writ into every movement. Never mind that Souta looked on—he would have to learn the way of the world eventually. With the pad of a gentle finger, he tipped her chin up and placed a soft kiss on her lips. Kagome frowned a little and he chuckled softly. “Disappointed? We have too much of an audience for the activities that you’ve no doubt been envisioning.”

“Oh?” She leaned around him, calling “Hey twerp!” when her eyes landed on her brother.

“Get a room!” He yelled back.

Kagome cocked a brow and looked pointedly at Sesshoumaru. “Shall we go to your room, then?”

Souta protested and Kagome turned back to the house. Sesshoumaru loosed his muscles once more and picked up where he left off before. His sword cut an arc through the air, whistling with the speed with which he drew it, stopping abruptly as Kagome’s sweet scent washed over his senses once more.

Sesshoumaru swallowed around his watering mouth, reading the invitation in that scent.

Dimly, he heard Souta’s voice calling him. “What’s wrong Sesshoumaru-san? Why’d you stop?”

One last glance at the door, and Sesshoumaru returned to his work. Kagome’s self-satisfied laugh rang through his ears. He would revenge himself upon her, eventually, once they were no longer in her mother’s house. He would _never _be fool enough to make _that _error. And he did not have much to wait, after all—the new year chimed in this evening, and they would depart back to his apartment as soon as they’d breakfasted in the morning.

Patience was a virtue he had honed to art. Never, in his vast years, had he experienced an impatience quite like what he felt whiling the day away, waiting the last moments of the evening; of the year. Easy to be patient, he reflected, when your life spanned centuries at least. No wonder humans were so short-tempered; stress grew in proportion to the brevity of their timelines.

When at last only a few minutes remained before the fireworks, Sesshoumaru’s hand slid into his pocket, where the tidily folded omikuji fortune from the previous winter hid, along with another little trinket. Lit by the soft amber lighting of the paper lanterns, face flushed from cold and contentment, Kagome had never looked more beautiful.

“I have a gift for you,” he said, after a long moment of regarding each other in silence.

“Another?” She asked, reaching up to touch her coat over where the pearl hung around her neck.

“And a much better one.” He delighted in the ambiguity of this statement. She would not know to expect the second. Already, her excitement showed through her escalated heartbeat, the slight quickening of her breath. He took her hand and led her away from the crowd toward the Goshinboku, seating her at a bench close by. Instead of taking a seat beside her, he reached into his pocket and considered the fortune, careful to keep it out of her line of sight. “Something you have been thinking of for some time, I am certain.”

She held her breath.

He extended his left hand, and Kagome crossed the expanse to settle her fingertips within his, fingers trembling with excitement.

He clasped her hand, studying her in silence. He expected that she would react positively to this gift, in the end, though he prepared himself for her disappointment in the short term. A slow breath in and he spoke. “I have found it to be remarkably accurate, yet again.” He flipped her hand over and deposited the fortune into her open palm.

“Oh!” Kagome exclaimed. When she glanced up at him, a genuine smile on her face, he felt relief fill him.

Kagome unfolded it before turning her eyes back up to his. “Thank you for keeping it,” she whispered, amazement in her eyes.

He debated whether to reveal what he desired to for the span of a moment before breaking his silence. “In truth, this fortune of yours has weighed heavily on my mind this year through.”

Kagome tilted her head. “Really? Why?”

“Do you recall the words you used when you put it into my hands to dispose of?” he asked. She shook her head. “I remember exactly. You said, ‘You decide. It was nice to read back on it at the end of the year, but I don’t know that I want to have it on my mind for the next twelve months.’ Not—” he looked down at his fingers, where they had moved to wrap around hers, “not particularly compelling statements on their own, though perhaps a little prophetic in my case.” A wry smile. “But what you said next…”

Kagome shook her head. She didn’t remember.

“You said that you would wonder, but only for a while. That life is too short for a long memory.” Repeating the words aloud made their sharpness fresh, the wound that they left behind aching again as though freshly inflicted. For her part, Kagome looked stricken. She obviously had come to some realization about what those words meant to him over the past twelve-month. “In the end, I decided to keep it for you. Your last fortune being eerily accurate, I was curious to see whether the results would replicate, regardless of the other feelings that keeping it engendered within me. I have never felt such strong emotions from merely knowing an inconsequential piece of paper _exists_, tucked away in my desk drawer though it may have been.”

Kagome smiled, a weak, watery thing. “And how was it, after all? Accurate?”

“_Remarkably_ accurate, to the last,” Sesshoumaru murmured, settling down on the bench beside her. Kagome at last turned her attention to the words on the paper, immersing herself in the reading.

He couldn’t have timed it better. When she finished reading, murmuring thinly, “accurate to the last,” the crowd around them shushed.

The countdown commenced.

The New Year chimed in. 

She avoided his gaze, looking to the fireworks rather than turning to him for a kiss.

But he would change her mind. He would change her fortune, just as she had changed his. Sesshoumaru wrapped his arms around her from behind, and his lips ghosted over her ear gently as he spoke. “_Akemashite Omedetou_.”

The curve of her cheek plumped as she smiled, despite whatever lingered of her dissatisfaction. “_Akemashite Omedetou,_” she replied in kind, voice just as soft. She had grown used to his superior hearing, he noted with pride.

“And it can finally be time for the ‘much better one’. My time away has been spent laying the groundwork for this, and though I present it to you, in reality it is a gift that _you_ will be giving _me_.”

A look of horror stole the smile from her expression. “Oh _no. _I’m sorry, I know I should’ve gotten you something for Christmas, but you _have everything_, and you’re the least materialistic—”

His lips touched gently to hers, silencing the panicked remorse spilling from her mouth. She became pliable in his embrace immediately, turning toward him, touching her hands gently to his chest. But he would need her hands free for this. He peeled her fingers from him and gathered them between their bodies.

Again her eyes raised to meet his, and the love glowing from within them eased his soul. This was the only outcome for them. He could not continue without her. Pressing one more lingering kiss to her lips, he unfolded her fingers, and laid the ring into her palm.

Weeks passed. Kagome, a regular fixture at his apartment, awaiting only the wedding to move in full-time, had brought a color into his day-to-day life that he had not realized he lacked. The rental apartment, so sterile when he moved in, now dotted with plants and photographs, signs of life and enjoyment of that life in every nook and cranny.

In a routine that he had come to appreciate, despite his general derision toward routine in general, Kagome made the coffee as he prepared their breakfast that morning. They moved around in a companionable silence, dancing around each other in the little space with practiced ease. When the coffee finished brewing, she set out two mugs and pulled the pot out of the machine.

Sesshoumaru had just finished plating up, a little bowl of rice topped with salmon, a pair of chopsticks before each setting. He leaned against the counter, waiting for her to finish, watching her comfortably robed form as she poured the fresh, steaming brew.

Kagome glanced up at him and shot him a smile, pouring one mug and passing it to him. When she turned back to pour the second, her elbow collided with the edge of the counter, and with a spasm of the fingers, fumbled the coffee pot.

Immediately at her side, Sesshoumaru yanked her hand away from danger as Kagome dropped the pot, which crashed into the floor in an explosion of coffee and broken glass. The smell of burnt flesh attacked his nose, and he took note of the scalded skin, delicate and thin, on her hands and fingers and up her forearms. It pained him—she would scar. Even as quickly as a Miko healed, she would not be spared the mark. His hand, also burned as the coffee spilled, would be fine within moments.

These reflections lasted less than a second before he pulled her along to the sink, the new smell of her tears in his nose and the jackhammering of her heart in his ears. By the time the water ran over their wounds, his hand had nearly finished healing, and beside it—

Beside it, so had hers.

He gripped her fingers in his, testing the skin. When she did not respond immediately, he turned off the tap.

She gasped, having caught on to the miracle that commandeered his attention. “What…?”

Though her eyes were cast down, examining the lack of wound, Sesshoumaru’s were focused on studying her face. She did not look different; no change in the steady pink glow that perennially floated about her, that marked her as the powerful Miko she was. Nearing her with the caution of a stranger, he leaned in and brought his nose over her neck, taking an indelicate sniff. Her scent unchanged; just exactly as it had been yesterday.

Anxieties eased, he gave her a thoughtful smile.

“Sesshoumaru... I’ve never done that before. I’ve healed faster than the average human, yeah, but…” she stared at the new skin, “not _that _fast.”

He knew this; hearing her confirm it made it more urgent. “When was your most recent injury?”

“Um… the blisters, from the archery lessons…” she blinked up at him, eyes wide. “…Before the Shikon no Tama disappeared.”

He picked her up gently, moving her away from the shattered glass all over the kitchen floor, to settle her in front of her breakfast in a silent command to eat. “Oppositional and interdependent,” he murmured as he seated himself beside her, eating in his usual sedate manner, though his gaze never strayed far from her.

Something had happened in the wood that day, he concluded, and the Shikon no Tama was at the center of it. Kagome, already tucking into her breakfast, did not notice when he leaned over and took another gentle sniff of her scent.

Indeed, it was _exactly_ the same as the day before. An aging adult human would smell slightly different, each day, as they marched progressively closer to their end. Granted, even for a human she could still be considered young, but he had noticed before the subtle differences in her fragrance periodically, and mourned.

A little smile drifted over his lips as he considered that perhaps he might not have to mourn her any longer.

A good thing he had obtained his mother’s approval in advance. There was no telling just how she would take _this _news.

But she needn’t be notified any time soon.

They had, after all, all the time in the world. 

-+-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was really important to me that Sesshoumaru decide on his future with Kagome prior to discovering that her lifespan has been (possibly) extended. I hope that came across in both versions, though much easier to make it clear when writing his POV!
> 
> Okay… this poem is again an allusion to another poem, which refers to the blossoms as a consolation for the writers forlorn state. This one turns the original on its head, with the yearning of the last line. Having someone to show it to would bring its own consolation. I think that’s pretty clear in how it relates to the chapter. Sesshoumaru has made his choice, and now all he wants is to let the world know~ Ahh, love.
> 
> Oh man, WHAT A RIDE. Thank you to those of you who stuck around and read through Omikuji, Han-Kichi, and Shikizaki. It was an absolute pleasure getting to read your comments and know that someone out there was enjoying this story, and then its sequel, and then its retelling. Omikuji started as a fluff piece to get me out of a writing funk, and I would say that it did its job very well, at this poiint. And another big thank you to Ines and Elizabeth, friends and beta readers, who have been worth their weight in gold. 
> 
> See you all again, sometime!
> 
> Just another little reminder that I’ve been working on an original novel for a while, and have recently started an author page/insta/tumblr/twitter. Feel free to check them out and interact with me! Please don’t mention the smut writing, lol, I’m trying to be legit :X It can be our little secret. 
> 
> www.spwritely.com Twitter: @writespwritely Insta: @spwritely Tumblr: @spwritely

**Author's Note:**

> If I may be so bold… I’ve been working on an original novel for a while, and have recently started an author page/insta/tumblr/twitter. The tumblr is a wreck—I’m still trying to figure that one out. Feel free to check them out and interact with me! Please don’t mention the smut writing, lol, I’m trying to be legit :X It can be our little secret.  
www.spwritely.com Twitter: @writespwritely Insta: @spwritely Tumblr: @spwritely


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